Rebel Heart
by squelchything
Summary: During the Galactic civil war, one young woman struggles to survive, through tragedy and loss, friendship and love. OC-centric, with a fair amount of Leia and some Luke and Han. COMPLETED 1 June.
1. Prologue

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...  
  
The Republic, the Republic that had stood for a thousand years, was dying. As Palpatine tightened the Imperial stranglehold, anyone who stood in his way-the Jedi, the Separatists-were destroyed. In the Senate, a few brave representatives spoke against him-Bail Organa, Padmé Amidala, Mon Mothma. As Palpatine's megalomania grew, they turned to outright rebellion. Their peoples largely supported them, for they were cultures that valued peace and freedom highly.   
  
Among Bail Organa's more vocal supporters was his old nanny. She had married the owner of Alderaan's richest transport company, and put her fortune, her company, her intelligence and her offspring at the fledgling Rebellion's disposal. Her name was Miridh Avram-businesswoman, fighter, Rebel-and I was her granddaughter. 


	2. Genesis

_Eighthmonth 1094_

I was born on Alderaan rather less than eighteen years before its destruction. That was the single most important factor in my life's path. I am no-one special; no destiny fastened itself inexorably to my shoulders, no portents heralded my birth. Born in another time or place, I would have lived a busy, obscure life, as untouched by galactic events as they were by my existance. But I was caught up in the events of the Rebellion against Palpatine's Empire, without my will, almost without a choice on my part. Perhaps the first step came in the summer of my twelfth year. 

We-my grandmother and I-were walking in the courtyard garden of our house; I was barefooted, with the grass stems tickling my legs under my skirt. Shamma had been talking of other subjects, and suddenly demanded of me, "Keitin, do you want to go to Girls' Model next year and learn how to catch a man, or do you want some real education?" 

This was an unfair reflection on the perfectly adequate syllabus of Aldera Girls' Model School; but most of my classmates who were going there seemed only interested in clothes and boys-subjects that inspired me to no great enthusiasm at that date. I replied vaguely that I would rather become a pilot or an engineer. Shamma laughed. "Then it's the Inst for you, _m'lei_." 

I had too much healthy respect for my grandmother to disagree even if I had wanted to. She had been running Avram Trade and Transport with an iron hand since her husband's death twenty years before, as well as rearing me, and I held her in as much awe as any of her employees did. My early years had the humdrum uneventfulness of any happy childhood-I went to primary school, played and fought with my cousins, learned to drive a speeder. I was something of a misfit both at home and at elementary school, and not much changed when I went to Inst. 

_Eighthmonth 1085_

The Vice-Regal Institute of Education, commonly known as 'Inst', was one of the foremost schools in the capital province, for Bail Organa sponsored it and indeed sent his own daughter there. As well as further lessons in the foundation subjects-mathematics, science, languages, galactography and astrogation, we learned wilderness survival, unarmed self-defence and combat, first aid, basic piloting and starship mechanics and repair. I also elected to study cookery and singing, out of a vague notion they were feminine and would please my aunts. I was the only granddaughter amid a swarm of boy-cousins, and as a result was a gawky, awkward tomboy of a child, more interested in piloting and mathematics than in dolls or frocks. My aunts must have despaired of me-I was a poor substitute for the daughter neither of them had. 

History was noticeably absent from the official curriculum, but the Empire-prescribed version of His Highness Emperor Palpatine's glorious New Order, told listlessly in primary school, was supplanted by a truer version told in lowered voices. All in all, it would be hard to imagine a better education for potential future Rebels, and I can only conclude that was Bail Organa's intention. 

The most popular girl in school was undoubtedly Princess Leia Organa. She was in the year above me, and always surrounded by a crowd of her friends like a bodyguard. I had, of course, known her before I started school. Shamma would take me with her when she visited Bail Organa at the Palace, and we would be expected to play together while the grown-ups talked. At this period I believe we had rather disliked each other than otherwise. 

It was on the shooting range that I changed my mind. Since Alderaan's destruction, I have often come across the misconception that we were a planet of pacifists, unable to tell one end of a blaster from the other. It is true that we had no capital warships, no standing army, no starfighters or ground-to-space missiles. However, people with the ability to use a blaster were common enough, though our low crime rates meant few people needed to carry one regularly, and they were strictly controlled. 

As I struggled to hit the target, Leia scored a series of centre shots on the next one. She watched my efforts with impatience, then leaned over to me. 

"You need to sight down the barrel. Imagine you are the bolt." 

I turned to aim again, too shy to thank her, and she added, "Sometimes your first instinct is the best one." 

I pulled the trigger, and managed to hit the target for a change. 

"See?" Leia said, smiling. "You can do it." 

That was the first seed. Leia Organa was an easy person to admire; brave, highly intelligent, witty, confident, beautiful even at fourteen. I envied her her easy grace-I had shot up recently, was still not sure how to handle my newly elongated limbs, and had developed a distressing tendency to fall over my own feet. As for the rest, I had hazel eyes, freckles on the bridge of my tip-tilted nose, and wavy brown hair with a mind of its own-it took concentrated effort to put it up and keep it up. Overall, I was pretty, for the Avrams were a good-looking clan, and in this at any rate I ran true to type. 

I tended to blend into the background at school, unlike my flamboyant cousins. My eldest cousin Lusar was still well remembered-when the teachers heard my surname they always asked was I his sister. Dan, the cousin closest to me in age and friendship, was in the year above me, but his method of coping with family in school was to ignore them, and so he made little impact on me at school. 

_Sixthmonth, 1096_

In the survival hike at the end of my first year, I drew the same group as Princess Leia, to my satisfaction. A group of students of all ages was left in the mountains, with instructions to hike to a specified pick-up point over the next week. It was the great annual event, and was looked forward to eagerly by almost everyone. 

We hiked through the Glasben Hills, with the Princess as our leader by default. The weather, on the whole, was glorious-high summer, but cool enough, up in the hills, to walk comfortably. The sky seemed closer up there, so vivid a blue it hurt to look at it, with blinding silver-edged clouds that made us hold our breaths for no rain. 

We hadn't many actual rock climbs. Mostly the route was through knee-high _frigh_ and bracken, interspersed with lochans and rocky places. There was nearly always a laverock singing overhead, and the hum of insects in the _frigh_. The most pervasive smell up in the hills was the faint, evocative scent of sweet-thorn flowers, and I could nevre smell it after that without being reminded of our hike. 

I suffered the treble misfortune of falling into a _shugh_, getting badly scratched by an sweet-thorn bush and being stung by some insect, all within the first two days. I must have been a terrible nuisance to the team. Ari Oharran, a messy-haired boy in the year above me, dubbed me 'the pest', without the least malevolence, and the Princess treated me with a strained sort of patience. Anyone meeting her that week would never have known she was royalty. She slaved away with the rest of us, and harder than most-certainly harder than I did. She put the boys to shame, despite being the shortest member of the team. 

Ari was our comic relief for the week. I didn't know him very well, only as a friend of my cousin Dan's, but he was friendly to me now, kind when I hurt myself, making us laugh with his quips, unfailingly cheery even on the day when it rained and everything went wrong. That was the day he kissed the Princess. Of course he had a crush on her, most of the boys in school did, but it took an enormous amount of cheek to act on it. 

We were sheltering against a rock face to sort out our gear. I had just had my run-in with the sweet-thorn bush, and Devin Tryla, a third year who had won the fist aid prize the previous summer, was dabbing my bleeding scratches with antiseptic lotion. 

"No point in that, Tryla," Leia commented as she redistributed and strapped up our gear. "It will just wash off again in the rain." 

"The last thing we need at this point is for those cuts to get infected," said Devin, who took her responsibilities as amateur medic seriously. Scowling at me, she continued, "As if it wasn't bad enough that it's chucking it down, you had to go and fall in a bush so we have to stand still in the rain patching you up. Why can't you kids look where you're walking?" 

"Oh no! We need a bacta tank before the pest dies on our hands!" Ari piped up. I made an appropriate death rattle, and he winked at me. 

"Chin up, _Inia_ Tryla," he added persuasively. "Any minute now the rain will stop and the sun _burst_ forth from the clouds. Either that, or a rock will fall off this cliff and put us all out of our misery." 

Devin snorted, but the Princess laughed, glancing upwards as if to see whether there _were_ any rocks about to fall. Ari grinned at his success, leaned in and planted a kiss on her unguarded mouth. Royal dignity was flung to the winds; Leia shrieked like any girl and slapped his face-not hard enough to damage him severely, but definitely enough to sting. 

"Ari Oharran! The boldness!" She put a hand over her mouth, rubbing vigorously at her lips. "_You_," she said sternly, "are getting the heaviest pack today as punishment. No one touches me without my permission, got it?" 

The rest of the group was thoroughly enjoying the drama of the situation, forgetting the rain and our wet boots in our interest. Having 'oohed' and 'aahed' enough, we went on-Ari with the heaviest pack, and a broad grin on his face. 

Having diverted us from our misfortunes, his prediction of fine weather came true; the sun blazed out again, drying our clothes and making the ground steam. The Princess was severe with Ari for the rest of the day, but it turned out that he had smuggled a packet of soft candies to eat round the campfire, so by nightfall he was back in her good graces again. I even heard her giggling with her friend Hanne over the kiss. 

We sat around the fire that night, toasting our candies, getting sticky fingered and mouthed. Overhead were a thousand stars, every colour from blue to crimson, undimmed by Aldera's artificial lighting. We talked a lot, those nights under the stars, with the earnestness of teenagers who have not yet learned how to laugh at themselves. Perhaps with more reason than most, for we lived in a galaxy at war, no matter how remote it seemed from our peaceful lives in Aldera. 

"I'm going to run for Senator next year," Leia told us one night. 

"Don't you want to fight the Empire, not join it?" Ari asked. This sort of talk was common in the Inst, though not many would have stated it as openly as reckless Ari. Princess Leia looked up at him earnestly. Her hair was half coming out of its hip-length plait and there was dirt on her face, but she still managed to look regal as she replied, "Ari, sometimes the best place to change something is from within." 

"Or attack something?" Ari pressed her. 

"I'm not going to throw a thermal detonator at the Emperor if that's what you mean. There are more subtle ways of fighting." 

"But the Senate has no real power any more," said Kolm, who, after me, was the youngest in the group. "If they go against the Emperor, he simply overrules them." 

"Being a politician gives you an excuse to travel a lot," Hanne put in. I had already guessed that Leia's frequent absences were spent on more than royal protocol, and that her mercy missions were a cover for more illicit activity. 

"Don't worry, Kolm," Leia reassured the boy. "If I have to fight, I will." 

"So will I," said Ari. "So will we all." 

Leia smiled. "The Rebellion needs more than just soldiers." 

"What?" Ari asked. 

"Money, mainly," Leia replied, glancing at me. "People on every planet who support us and can stir up sedition. If the Imperial leadership is ever destroyed, the people of the galaxy need to take control and restore democracy." 

"A new Republic," Kolm suggested. 

"Exactly," Leia said. "The Republic had its flaws, but no one should have enough power to control a galaxy. We need to make sure that no politician can seize control the way Palpatine did." 

"When?" Ari asked abruptly. 

"I don't know. Perhaps not in our time, but our surely our children and grandchildren will live to see it." 

There was a pause, when we could hear the grasshopper chirping in the grass around us. The woodsmoke was tickling my nose, and I sneezed. Then Ari broke the tension, saying, "But Your Highness, this is so sudden! I had no idea..." 

"Oy!" Leia said, laughing. "Time for bed, Oharran. You're already dreaming." -~-~-~- 

At last the week drew to a close. We came down from the hills, tired and happy, grimy and suntanned. I had freckles. We were bruised, scratched and stung-or all three at once, in my case-but tougher and stronger for it, and we had been forced to get along with all our teammates. 

"Last ridge," said Bailey, the boy who had the map. "The village is over the other side. And we're early-we made good time today." 

We struck into a grassy lane, hedged with sweet-thorn. It was leggy and woody beneath, but at head height the thorny branches were so thick with flowers they looked like snow, with a smell sweet enough to make your heart turn over, and there were small yellow flowers like stars among the tall grass stems. I had grit in my boots. We reached the village. It was a farming community, nerfs grazing the slopes around it, the calves crying to their mothers. The yield of milk was so rich that year the herders couldn't sell or drink it all-they were practically giving it away, so we were able to have a brimming glass of milk each as we waited to be collected in our bright red school speeder-bus. 

We found a stone wall to lean on, facing out across the green plains. Far away at the edge of sight, the ocean glittered. My sharp eyes could just make out Aldera's distant towers, sharp as tiny pins, and the silver curve of the lake. It was very still, apart from the nerfs and the laverocks, and very warm. Leia, propping her boot heel on the wall beside me, picked up a sun-warmed stone and weighed it in her palm. 

"This is home, Keitin," she said softly. "This is what politics are about, and wars are fought for-for moments like these. This is what we are fighting for." 

I looked out across the wide plains that had cradled our people for uncounted years, and agreed. 


	3. The Shadows Gather

_Firstmonth, 1098_

It seems odd, now, that I never set foot off Alderaan until I was fifteen. Leia did run for Senator, and when she was instated, half the school went to Coruscant to see it. I was one of the eldest then, herding a gaggle of over-excited thirteen-year-olds through the Alderaanian Embassy. Ari Oharran was working there by that time, and he greeted me cheerfully. I did not see Leia close enough to speak to, at her inaugural speech, but I was part of the cheering crowd. She was a small, grave figure in her white dress, her hair in the double-bun hairstyle that would always be associated with her-although all the teenage girls on Alderaan copied her hairstyles, clothes and makeup. I did myself, when I could be bothered. 

I found Coruscant bewildering, if impressive. The prospect of a planet-wide city was claustrophobic-endless buildings, stretching on and on with no mountains or grass or ocean. Alderaan, I realised, was next thing to empty. My world had been narrow. 

After Leia's inauguation, I led my little group of first years back to the hotel where we were staying. 

"Calli, stay on the walkway, please," I called. "Iruben Avram, if you don't stop doing that _this second_ I will tell Shamma!" 

My cousin Ged-Uncle Shan's son, falling between myself and Iruben in age-came over to me in the lobby. 

"I asked permission to go to the Galactic Museum, and they said I could go if a third-year went with me, so will you, Keitin? Please?" 

"Oh, all right, Ged." 

We rode an air taxi to the imposing Galactic Museum. I was sure it was the largest building I had ever been in, bigger even than the Viceregal Palace at home in Aldera. In short order, we were lost. I did not much like the place, or the constant glorifying the Emperor, the exhibits that I knew to be outright lies. I felt uneasy. 

"This is the history section," I said, peering through a doorway. 

"Propaganda, you mean," Ged retorted, dropping into Alderaanian. 

"Ged!" 

"What? There's no one to hear and even if there were they couldn't understand it." 

"All the same! Shamma would kill you herself if she knew you were being so foolish." 

"Oh, Shamma this, Shamma that-just because you're the favourite-" 

"Just because _you're_ an idiot, you mean-" I rejoined hotly. 

"Look, this is one of the main halls," Ged observed as we emerged from a tall archway. 

"We should be able to find the way out now," I said cheerfully, instantly dropping the quarrel. Ged suddenly gave a muffled squeak and grabbed my hand so hard that it hurt. From the next archway ahead of us came the uniformed figure of a high-ranking Imperial officer. I echoed Ged's squeak with one of my own. 

The Imperial paused a moment to gaze in what was probably surprise at these two strange teenagers who had almost just fallen over his feet. I straightened my shoulders, lifting my chin a little. His hard grey eyes looked me up and down. I was wearing my Inst uniform; navy-blue skirt, yellow sash, and wide-collared white shirt with the initials of the school's name embroidered on the pocket in Alderaanian script. The eyes paused at the pocket. 

"You are Alderaani?" 

"Yes," I said, adding an unwilling, "sir." 

"Ah, the Princess," he said coolly. "I suppose you are very proud of her." 

"Yes, of course," I replied, not liking the overtones I could sense in the Imperial's voice. 

"Princess Leia should be careful of the company she keeps," he said, ominously and cryptically, and strode off. 

"What do you suppose he meant by that?" I wondered aloud, when he was out of earshot. 

"I don't care, Keitin. He gave me the creeps. Let's go home, shall we?" 

"That's a very good idea," I said absently. "Best you've had all day, in fact." 

_Fourthmonth, 1099_

I stayed on at school for my fourth year. It was Shama's decision, but, having nothing better to do and no career ambitions, I was pleased enough to stay on. I regretted it halfway throught the year, for I was shoved through the first two years of a degree in electronics, working in conjunction with the University. 

"Students are a lazy lot," Shama said. "They only work a few hours a day. You're bright, I'll have you on your apprenticeship year by the time you should have gone up in the autumn." 

Aunt Shosha didn't approve of this, because she said I was missing the social aspect, but I didn't care. I didn't socialize much anyway. 

One evening in the spring of that year I padded downstairs in my nightgown to find Shamma sitting up, her datapad open in front of her. 

"I dreamed," I said, curling up in the chair beside her. "I dreamed the one where I am on some steps, and everywhere is smoke and blood and pain." 

Shamma gave me an odd look. 

"You often dream that?" 

"I dreamed it a lot when I was younger." 

"They say my great-uncle had the two sights," was Shamma's next, oblique comment. I yawned. 

"The 'two sights' is a superstition, probably due to undetected and latent Force-sensitivity in the individual," I said sleepily, quoting from a book called _Alderaanian Traditions_ I had once read. 

"Ah, the wisdom of youth," Shamma said. "And now they try to say that the Force and the Jedi are superstitions as well." 

I yawned again. Shamma's form blurred in my drowsy vision, seeming to move further away. I roused myself to look at her properly, my chin tipped to one side. It came to me that she had been looking tired and grey lately. Perhaps for the first time I realised that my grandmother was old, and my heart turned over. I moved to kneel in front of her chair, looking up into her face. 

"Shamma, you're all right, aren't you? You're not ill?" 

Instead of the easy reassurance I had been hoping for, Shamma sighed. 

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that, _m'lei_." 

I stared up at her fearfully, the breath stopping in my throat. I wanted to stop time, to not have to hear what my grandmother was about to say. She took my face between her two hands, saying, "I am indeed ill, Keitin. In fact the Hunter is snapping uncomfortably close to my heels now." 

The Hunter was the old Alderaanian personification of death. My chin trembled. 

"Shamma, you can't die! You mustn't! Can't-can't they do anything for you?" 

And I hid my face in her skirt and burst into tears. 

"There's one thing the medics haven't got a cure for, and that's old age," Shamma said. "Oh, little daughter, it would only be putting off the inevitable..." 

She let me have my cry out, her hands stroking my hair. At length, I lifted my head and asked, sniffing, "What will become of me when you die?" 

"There are your shares in the company I made over to you when you were born. They're yours, absolutely. You are sixteen years old, besides. You aren't a child any more. And there will always be a post at ATT if you want one." 

"I'm not sure I do," I said, wiping my eyes on the back of my hand. I could see my future stretching ahead of me; it seemed very dreary and lonely. To my surprise, Shamma laughed. 

"I am just remembering your mother at the same age, child. _More excitement_, she said she wanted. So she tried for the Vice-Reine's bodyguard-and got it on her looks I think, for the lady had brought her handmaiden decoy idea with her from Naboo. 

"Excitement, humph! I just wonder how many young ones join the Rebellion from conviction, and how many because they were bored at home." 

I sat up, interested. I wanted to question Shamma about everything, suddenly. I wanted to know and remember. 

"Why did you join, Shamma?" 

"So certain! How long have you known that, little eyes-and-ears?" 

"Oh, always. Sure the Viceroy practically founded it-do you expect me to believe you wouldn't follow him?" 

"I don't expect you to understand fully why I joined. You haven't seen the Empire at work, yet." 

"I saw Coruscant." 

"What did you think of it?" 

"It put me in mind of fair flowers and grass growing on the surface of a stinking bog." 

"Ah. Sharp girl. In the Clone War, and since then, we saw the bog plain, without the grass and flowers. And what are you going to do about it, Keitin?" 

"Drainage work?" 

She laughed, and said, "Drainage work it is-and your hands will get dirty. You know that your mother died because of the Rebellion?" 

"On Coruscant, in a terrorist attack on the Organas that probably had Imp fingerprints all over it. Yes." 

"And you would be willing to put yourself in that danger?" 

"Yes. Do you want me to? After all, the Princess has doing it for years-why shouldn't I?" 

Shamma shook her head, saying again, "Ah, but you're like Teludh, rushing in heedless." 

"How much am I like her?" I asked, aware that I might not have more chances to ask. 

"Very like to look at, though you're thinner, and her eyes were black and her hair was straight." 

"Lucky her," I interjected. 

"As for the rest, you talk much less than she did. You're both very strong, very loyal. I think you'd be the better pilot, but she was a good slicer, and you don't seem to have inherited that. You have more of a bent for healing than she had-I suppose you get that from your father. If you live to see the end of the Empire, you will need that." 

I shivered. Even as we talked, I was constantly reminded that Shamma certainly would not outlive the Empire. I looked at my hands clasped across my grandmother's lap, considering myself-one quarter her, one quarter my grandfather, half my unknown father. Kei Bartoli, an underground agent in the young Rebellion, executed for high treason-that was the sum and total of my knowledge. 

"Why didn't she marry my father?" I asked abruptly and resentfully. 

"Sometime in war or great danger, people do things that go against their principles. I don't say that excuses her, but you are not guilty of it." 

"Why do people act as if I were, then?" 

"Families are symbiotic networks, Keitin. What affects one member affects them all. And so you suffer the consequences of your parents' wrongdoing, and your children too, if you have any." 

"That's not fair." 

"It's the way life is. Is it fair, either, that good things come out of bad? If it hadn't been for that act of your parents, would I have you today?" 

I shook my head slowly, considering. 

"And now," Shamma said, switching into Basic-we had been speaking Alderaanian-"I am old and tired and it is past both our bedtimes." 

So we went to bed, but I at any rate had no sleep that night. 


	4. The Young Rebel

_Eighthmonth, 1099_

My initiation into the Rebellion was gentle, almost imperceptible. After I left school, Shamma sent me on a series of trips to various depots and factories her company owned. Ostensibly I was learning about the workings of Avram's, in preparation for an eventual managerial post, as well as completing my apprenticeship year towards converting the diploma I already had to a degree. In fact, I learned a lot not only about Avram Trade and Transport, but about the galaxy in general. I listened to the pilots talk as they hauled cargo across the galaxy in my grandmother's bulk freighters. I saw a lot of spaceports, and for the first time I sat in a cockpit as hyperspace whirled past the windows. My piloting abilities came on in leaps. I learned the tricks of being an unofficial spy. I had always been good at blending into the background, observing everything while going unnoticed myself. I learned that the galaxy was vast and dangerous, far beyond the imagination of my sheltered life on Alderaan, and that there were many corners where Imperial presence was absent or minimal. 

One piece of highly interesting information I learned at this time was the fact that not only was a large proportion of my grandmother's personal income sunk in the Rebel coffers, a more direct support was also provided. Many of the cargoes recorded in the books as 'stolen' or 'captured by pirates' were actually handed over bloodlessly to shadowy Rebels on out-of-the-way Rim planets, and the shortfall made up from Avram pockets. I myself oversaw the transfer of several shiploads of food concentrates and medical supplies to battered freighters, piloted by crews of fighter-pilot types. I was useful as another trustworthy crew member on the Avram's end of things-the fewer of the pilots involved in the treasonable activities, the better. The men were loyal and chosen carefully, but betrayal was always a danger. 

My grandmother was highly efficient at cover-up. The handovers were seamless and undetected; the crews complained loudly about pirates and protection rackets. Shamma even took her complaints to official levels-the Alderaanian High Council. 

"This is not good enough! Do you know what value of merchandise Avram Trade and Transport has lost in this quarter alone? Upwards of two million credits! It can't go on! Why doesn't the Empire crack down on these gangsters?" 

"Because they can milk 'em," my cousin Dan advised me in a whisper. But Shamma was well away. 

"That Hutt consortium still controls half the Outer Rim, raids along the Thuran trade routes have doubled in the last five years, piracy is rampant in the colony worlds-what are the Imperials doing?" 

My grandmother, together with my uncle Tad, Dan and myself, were appearing before the Council to raise an official complaint. Up on the dais, the Viceroy, the provincial governors and counsellors were gathered. A slender figure rose among them. 

"I will lobby this point during the next Senatorial session, _Inia Abhram_." Princess Leia's contralto voice rang out confidently through the circular Council Hall. I grimaced, wondering how hard she would be lobbying. While the list my grandmother had given was genuine, and caused us to lose money, a certain amount of criminal activity in the galaxy was a cover for the Rebellion, who sometimes _were_ the criminals. 

We left the Council Hall after the session, trailing at Shamma's heels with varying degrees of grace. We were to attend the Organas in the Palace afterwards, Dan griping rather loudly about it. We were received in a summerhouse at the rear of the Palace, one where we could not easily be overheard. Leia and I chatted while the older adults made small talk. "How's the Senate going?" I asked, smiling shyly. 

"Oh, the usual. Endless speeches, grinding bureaucracy-ugly middle-aged senators." 

We shared a conspiratorial grin. My grandmother, I saw, had turned her attention on the Viceroy. 

"Shamma treats your father like he's still in the nursery," I murmured to Leia. 

"I believe he's still scared of her," she whispered back. 

"I know I am," I said, as the Princess steered us over towards the pair. 

"...don't like it all. Something's afoot in that sector that the Empire is keeping a very close lid on." 

Uncle Tad moved towards us, having taken a glass of wine from a protocol droid. 

"Is that the Ravernet black hole you're talking about, Mother?" he asked. 

"Yes, _m'lon_, and if the Imperials _were_ feeding a black hole in there, they could not have used more materials. Durasteel, carbides, metals, electronics-it's all disappearing." 

"How long has this been going on?" Leia asked, lifting a glass from the droid's tray. "Thanks, Threepio." 

"Five years, ten perhaps. It's so difficult to prove anything," Shamma said. 

"They might be building a new military base," Dan suggested. Shamma gave an exasperated sigh. 

"No, Dan, they are not. Explain to him why not, _m'lei_." 

"I've been to that sector," I said coolly. "There's nothing there, honestly, Dan. There are only a few populated systems, some asteroid mining-it makes no sense to have a military presence there. Ruling by terror doesn't work when there is no one to terrorise." 

"What did I tell you, Bail?" Shamma said, poking her stick in my direction. "Brightest of the brood." 

I glowed at the compliment, biting my lip to stop a foolish grin spreading across my face. 

"It could be a secret research or training facility, or something movable," Leia mused. "New starships perhaps." 

"Perhaps," the Viceroy said. "But it must be something unusual for them to keep it so secret. Something Sluis Van and Kuat and the Corellian shipyards can't handle." 

"Wonderful," Princess Leia said flatly. "An extra-nasty Imperial surprise. Just what we wanted." 

"The pilots say there are rumours of some Imperial superweapon," Dan said, not damped by his earlier correction. 

"Something with enough firepower to destroy a planet," I added. 

"Spacer's talk," Leia said dismissively. I withered, feeling squashed. Dan rolled his eyes. 

"No one could possibly produce a weapon that powerful, could they, Father?" she continued, turning to the Viceroy, who looked grave. 

"Don't underestimate them, _m'lei_. Twenty-five years ago I would have said it was impossible for one man to destroy the Republic, yet here we are." 

There was silence for a moment, as we seemed to have reached impasse. Uncle Tad sighed. 

"You never know," he said sardonically. "If we're _really_ lucky, the Imperials _are_ just chucking it all down the Maw." 

And we laughed, for we were ignorant. 

_Twelfthmonth, 1099_

Time passed. My eldest cousin Lusar was married amid great celebrations. Ged-Uncle Shan's eldest boy-left school. We grandchildren grew a little longer, Shamma a little more worn, but no less in control. Those of the family who knew of her illness fretted, and I felt as though we were living on borrowed time, that at any moment she could be snatched from us. For my seventeenth birthday Shamma gave me _Swift_, one of the family's personal fleet of space yachts. I had been coveting her for years, and was ecstatic when Shamma handed me her papers on my birthday morning. 

I stood on the landing platform with my cousins, admiring my new possession. She lived up to her name, with her powerful hyperdrive and bank of sublight engines. She had a deceptive amount of hull space for her size, and beautiful lines. 

"You're so _lucky_," my cousin Iruben told me enviously. "Why can't I have a ship like the _Swift_?" 

Dan snorted. "You're fifteen, _m'lelkon_. Patience! What _I_ want to know, is why _she_ is given the _Swift_ while Finn and I make do with half-shares in the _Pride of Alderaan_." 

"She's Shamma's pet, is why," said Finn, who came between Lusar and Dan in age, and teased me even worse than the younger boys. I ran a hand gloatingly along my ship's gleaming hull. 

"Maybe if you two had not wrecked five speeders between you by the time you were my age, you would get a better deal!" I retorted. I ran lightly down the steps from the platform, and looked back at _Swift_, crouched sleek and copper-coloured on the platform. _She's beautiful, and she's mine, all mine,_ my thoughts sang happily. I was skipping along the colonnade that led to the garden when I heard my aunt Shosha's voice upraised. 

"You spoil her, _Inia_. You're indulging her in every way possible-just like her mother." 

I froze in place, instantly certain that Aunt Shosha was speaking to my grandmother, and that I was the subject of discussion. 

"I mean, the Alliance is very well-but need she have done something quite so dangerous? And to have a _ut_-an illegitimate-" 

"Shosha!" Shamma said in her terrible voice. "Teludh is dead because she did what she thought right. Was I to prevent her from that? And I have indulged neither Teludh nor Keitin-certainly no more than you indulged your boys..." 

I stood there, fists clenched, my happiness of a moment before replaced by a cold weight in my stomach. I knew what my aunt had been about to call me-_utathar_, fatherless, bastard. I'd bloodied Dan's nose once, when we were children, for calling me that. The name had followed me through my schooldays like a whispered accusation. Was I forever to be outcast because of my birth? Even among my family? 

I turned away from the sound of the argument in the garden, breaking into a run when I was out of earshot. _Not fair, not fair,_ my footsteps beat out. I ran till I was well out away from our house, almost to the foot of Council Hill. I leaned breathless on a tree at the foot of Organa's Stair, gazing out past the city across the fertile plain to the Glasbens beyond. 

"Am I to blame for whatever my parents were?" I muttered to the sky. I remembered the talk I had had with Shamma the night she told me she was dying. Farther back in memory, coming home from primary school in dire trouble for hitting a boy who had called my mother a 'streetwalker'. Shamma had pulled me onto her lap, explained that sometimes good people made mistakes that laid them open to harsh names. 

"A mistake, am I?" I muttered. "And I am _not_ spoiled!" 

-~-~-~-~- 

_Firstmonth 1100_

My first single-handed transfer, in _Swift_, was on a planet called Serpial. _Swift_ had a bellyful of engine components, and I had a bellyful of nerves. This was the first time I had been solely responsible for anything. If anything went wrong now, the blame was wholly mine. 

I walked casually into the tapcafe where I was to meet my contacts. I was dressed, typical pilot fashion, in trousers and open-necked shirt, my blaster swinging openly from my hip. I went to the bar, scanning the cafe as I walked. It was somewhat sparsely tenanted at this time of day, mostly human males, a few Rodians and other species. I watched the tables, trying not to make eye contact with too many people. There was always the danger that a bored pilot would make a pass at me, despite my utilitarian dress and dirty face. As well as being an annoyance, it distracted from my purpose. 

I plumped on a table of two restless young men as my Rebels, and when I had bought my Jawa Juice, crossed to their table. 

"Mind if I join you?" 

"Sure," said the stockier of the young men. I sat, keeping my blaster in easy reach and full view. 

"What do you boys do, then?" I asked. An easy lead-in if they were my contacts, an innocuous inquiry if they were not. 

"We're looking to pick up a special consignment at the minute. Know of anywhere we could pick up some Amazon-class hyperdrive components, sister?" 

The keywords were all there. I allowed myself the faint trace of a satisfied grin before giving the counter-sign. 

"I might be able to help you there. My cousin's brother-in-law supplies those." 

The young man nodded in relief. 

"Sure. Our ship's in here-wanna take a look?" 

"All right." I knocked back the rest of my drink and stood. The Rebel muttered to his companion, "You stay here, be down at the ship in ten, 'kay?" 

We walked down to Docking together. The cool breeze was a relief after the closeness of the cafe. We stopped by the Alliance's battered tramp freighter to pick up a pair of loading droids, then on to _Swift_. 

"What'll she make?" my companion asked, eying her appraisingly. 

"One point one," I said smugly. 

"Sweet!" he whistled. "The Milk Run is sure going up in the galaxy, if it can afford a ship like that!" 

"She's my personal property. What do you mean, the Milk Run?" 

He glanced round the dock, lowering his voice. 

"Supply and Procurement, of course. Everyone calls it that nowadays. So," he went on, in normal tones this time, "you're just a poor little rich girl, playing at this?" 

"Who's playing?" I snapped, palming the hold door open. "And had we not better start shifting this stuff?" 

It took us less than two hours to transfer the consignment, with the droids and the Rebels all joining in. As we parted, the first pilot grinned down at me. 

"Bye, kid-who's not _playing_," he said. "May the Force be with you." 

"And with you," I returned, mollified. 

Then I was off, racing for home with an empty hold. Success. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~- 

I returned from Serpial to find that Lusar and Hele's baby had been born in my absence, and I was just in time for her Naming, a ceremony which is carried out for every Alderaani newborn. Sometimes I felt as though an infant were not properly born until it had been Named and presented to its family. 

It was a good few years since there had been a Naming in the Avram family. The last had been my eleven-year-old cousin Yemi. But my generation was grown now and the next was begun, in the shape of Lusar's newborn daughter. 

The whole family had gathered; my grandmother, Uncle Tad and Aunt Shosha, Uncle Arod, Uncle Shan and Aunt Talith, Lusar and his wife and baby, myself, all the other cousins-Dan, Finn, Irubeth, little Yemi, Ged, Arcos-Great-Aunt Kerith (quite senile, poor thing), and a dozen or so second cousins. 

Everyone was in their best clothes, except for second-cousin Zosi, just in from the moon base and still in her coveralls. I had dressed my hair in the double-bun style Princess Leia had made fashionable. I shoved the pins in a little more firmly as we filed into the circular hall. My hair was more accustomed to a long plait or a mass of unruly curls than the smooth coils. 

Dan held the baby, crooning, "Who loves her Uncle Dan, then?" 

I grinned delightedly and prodded him in the ribs, leaning against his shoulder to get a good view of my small cousin. She had the crumpled look that most newborns have, red-faced and round-eyed, with an expression of perpetual astonishment in the face of this strange new world. 

"Gone soft, Dani boy?" I teased. The baby swung a dimpled hand and grabbed my index finger, frowning with the effort. I smiled. A baby was such a wonderful thing, an affirmation of life and joy and love. She made me want to laugh aloud. 

"Better give her back to your brother now, _m'lon_," Uncle Tad broke in. "Unless you are planning on Naming her yourself." 

As Dan trotted off obediently, a question I had never thought of before struck me. 

"Uncle Tad, who Named me? My mother?" 

"As your oldest male relative, I named you. That is permissible in cases where the child's father is dead or-er-absent." 

He spoke, as always to me, as impersonally as though he were delivering stock values in a company meeting. I frowned, about to say more, but my grandmother clapped her hands for silence and the start of the ceremony. We sat, with me wedged between Ged and Dan, and Yemi elbowing me in the knees. Lusar and his pretty wife Hele stood in the centre of the circle. He held his daughter up in his arms and cleared his throat. The Old Alderaanian words rang out clear in the silence. 

"Family of Avram, I Lusar here present to you this my daughter Chama. Do you receive her?" 

My grandmother stood forward, and he passed her the baby. 

"This daughter is in the arms of the Family. We receive her." 

We all gave our assent in a low roar of "Yes!" 

Shamma kissed her first great-grandchild, face shining with pride. She stated firmly, "Chama Avram!" 

And that is a Naming. I was just old enough to remember Yemi's Naming, but it had gone mostly over my head as a child. Now, I felt the emotion of the occasion. The Family was an organic whole, and I was part of it. This was where I belonged, dubious parentage and disapproving aunts notwithstanding. I looked round the circle and loved them all, even Aunt Talith. 

The solemn part of the occasion now over, we got down to celebrations. Everyone had to kiss little Chama's silky head and embrace Lusar and Hele. We younger members danced elaborate sets all over the hall floor, and for the adults, fine wine flowed freely-a little too freely for second-cousin Fran, who tried to flirt with our waitress droid KL-90 until Finn, half-helpless with laughter, led him away. The young couple and their baby retired early, but the rest of us partied late into the night. 

It was a good time. It stands so clearly in my mind because it was the last of the good times, so near the end. 


	5. Coruscant Again

_Seventhmonth 1100_

The next few months were relatively uneventful. The gaps between a few routine transfers and journeys were filled by Aunt Talith's attempts to introduce me to polite society. It bored me rigid, and more than once I found myself longing for a spacer's cantina. At least there there was no pretence. Returning from one of these social visits, I came clattering into our hall one windy day to find Shamma and Bail Organa in earnest conversation. 

"You remember him, don't you?" Bail was saying. 

"Yes, yes-ah, here you are, _m'lei_! Tell me, is _Swift_ fuelled at the moment?" 

"Ye-es. But she is due her annual check-out this week. I think her transitions to hyperspace have been sluggish lately." 

"She will manage another trip. To Coruscant this time, so it will be a short one. Get ready and prepare her for take-off. I will see you shortly." 

I shrugged as I ran up the stairs. _Mine not to reason why-and a trip to Coruscant should be simple enough-no Rebels, no transfer, no danger._ But I could not shake the vague sense of unease that assailed me. My grandmother had looked worried, and the Viceroy ghastly. 

Half an hour later, having packed a few clothes and styled my hair more practically in a plait, I sat in my cockpit, prepping _Swift_ for takeoff. I swung my chair as I heard Shamma stumping up the ramp on her stick. 

"I'm glad to see you so prompt," she said, leaning on the co-pilot's chair. "I have a few commissions for you. This datacard is for Ghesli in the Coruscant office, the blue one is for Kal Jonisik, and this one is to go to my legal representative." 

I stowed the datacards away in my hidden overhead locker, along with my emergency blaster and forged ID. 

"If anyone asks, you are on a pleasure trip-go shopping or something." 

She pressed a handful of high-denomination credit chips into my hand. 

"That's a loan, mind you." 

"Yes, Shamma," I replied wryly. "Shamma, what's happening? Why are you so worried? Is it outright war at last?" 

"I cannot say, Keitin. Time will tell. Now get along with you. Blessings on your path-and may the Force be with you." 

"Good-bye, Shamma." 

I stooped to kiss her cheek. I was constantly aware, when I left her nowadays, that there was always a danger it would be for the last time. She looked more stooped than ever. I saw her small figure at the edge of the landing platform as I took off. Already she was turning away down the steps. 

And the sun set over Aldera. 

-~-~-~-~- 

I was in a sour mood as I navigated Alderaan's orbital traffic, though it was a picnic compared with what I knew Coruscant's would be. _Something is going to happen. The Princess has been off-planet a lot, even for her. I saw the _Tantive_ leaving again three days ago. And it's the Senatorial recess. Stars, I wish Shamma trusted me enough to tell me-I am not a child any more! Something is happening, and she tells me to go to Coruscant and _shop. 

I hauled back on _Swift_'s hyperdrive engage as we left Alderaan's gravity well behind. Again I felt the momentary hesitation, the stutter in power as she made the jump. I patted the steering yoke. 

"Hang in there, old girl. You'll have a good overhaul when we get back home." 

-~-~-~-~- 

The Coruscant head office, on the edge of what our family still tended to refer to as Galactic City, was built in Alderaanian style as far as possible, with 'Avram Trade and Transport' scrolling across it in a hologram. I drew my hired speeder to a halt on the landing platform. I had already been to see the lawman, and had saved this for last. 

"Kal Jonisik?" I asked the reception droid. 

"Room 471, Level Seven," it chimed sweetly. 

Jonisik, a young Twil'lek male, greeted me with a smile and took the datacard with a blatant wink. This was a human rather than Twil'lek gesture, and he was evidently very proud of aquiring it. 

"You want to see old Ghesli too? Let's go. Beats hanging round here filing taxation reports." 

Ghesli's office was near the top of the tower, above traffic level. It was empty when we reached it, but Ghesli reappeared shortly. He was middle-aged and rotund and, unlike Jonisik, was Alderaani. 

"Ah-sorry to have kept you waiting-but this terrible news-" 

"What? What has happened?" I said, still holding out the datacard. He blinked worriedly at me. 

"Princess Leia's ship was lost in the Outer Rim two days ago with all on board. The news came in this morning. You knew her, did you not? I am sorry." 

I set the datacard on his desk as carefully as if it were fragile and might break with rough handling. 

"I was at school with her, in Aldera," I told him. I walked to his window and leaned my head against it, staring without seeing across the cityscape, bathed in golden afternoon sunlight. 

"Oh dear, oh dear," Ghesli burbled behind me "You will join us for dinner this evening, my lady, I hope? In Levìs Tower-you know where it is-" 

I turned. Ghesli was actually wringing his hands together; Jonisik was looking acutely uncomfortable. 

"Certainly-be glad to-" I said randomly. I gestured at my piloting jumpsuit and boots. "I must go-and change-" 

And with that, I fled. 

-~-~-~-~- 

Later that evening, I drove back to the docks on the far side of the city, the wind blowing my white dress as I sat in the speeder's open cockpit. My hood, sash and hair-ribbon were purple, the traditional colour of mourning on Alderaan. I had bought them in haste at a covered market near the Avram's building. 

It was good to be in the open air again, even if it was Coruscant's recycled version. A dinner-party full of managers and directors was not enjoyable at the best of times, and especially not when I was grieving. I had sat there, pushing the finest Alderaanian cuisine listlessly around on my plate, making replies in monotone to the businessmen, and had left as soon as was decently possible. I wanted to be alone, to weep for Leia, and most of all to go home. 

This was the first time death had touched me directly. My parents were dead, but I had never known them, and they only were a gap. I had been nerved up to lose Shamma, but the thought of Leia dying had never occurred to me. I had loved the Princess, with her bravery and idealism and beauty. It seemed impossible that someone so full of life could be dead. 

I realised that, lost in thought, I had taken a wrong turning when I saw the Imperial Palace looming ahead of me. I let the speeder coast while I tried to get my bearings. The Palace's black silhouette bulked against the crimson sunset. I frowned up at it, thinking I saw a flicker of movement on its roof. The Palace, for all its beautiful architecture, seemed to hold some ominous presence, a monstrous insect lurking at the centre of its web. I felt as though some palpable evil crouched up there-I could almost taste it; it made my heart beat faster, my blood pound in my ears. 

"She didn't die by accident," I whispered. "You killed her, you heartless scum. You killed her." 

Tears were slipping down my face beneath my hood. I wiped them off impatiently, and slammed my foot on the accelerator. I wanted away from that place! 

-~-~-~-~- 

I stumbled into the safe, dark refuge of my cabin on _Swift_. When I saw my reflection in my mirror-pale and exhausted, with eyelids and nose scarlet from crying-I decided I needed a night's sleep before attempting the orbiting junkyard that was Coruscant's spaceways. I pulled my hair loose, letting it fall to my waist in a tangle of auburn disorder. I did not bother to put on my sleepsuit, just curled up under my blankets in my underwear. I cried again for Leia before I slept. 

-~-~-~-~- 

The next morning, as I was brushing my hair, the routine systems check interrupted itself with a beeping tone. I padded into the cockpit to find various lights flashing red, and warnings of imminent equipment failure on the monitors. I narrowed the problem to the hyperdrive, cursed the fact that _Swift_ hadn't had her overhaul before I came to Coruscant, and grabbed my coveralls. 

After a standard hour of poking around in _Swift_'s guts, I discovered that the hyperdrive motivator's feedback circuits had come adrift, and that to repair them was beyond my skill. I pushed a couple of loose strands of hair back from my forehead, highly displeased. I knew now the cause of _Swift_'s sluggish hyperdrive. It was unfortunate, I thought, that the fault had become critical here on Coruscant rather than at home, where there was a dedicated team of Avram's mechanics tending to the fleet. But there was a Mechanics and Repair facility at the Avram's depot in the Coruscant docks, and I set off for it. 

-~-~-~- 

"What do you mean, you can't get it till tomorrow morning?" I demanded. 

"What I say, darling," the Avram's mechanic, a black-haired human male, told me uninterestedly. "You trying to pull rank on me? Just cos you're the family-" 

"You want me to pull rank on you? Fine, than! I'll tell my grandmother what's going on at this depot-she doesn't stand for slackers in her company-" 

"Whoa, whoa!" He held up his hands. "Calm down, milady! I'll do my best, but we're all behindhand after being closed yesterday afternoon-respect for the Princess, you know..." 

My temper ebbed away, to be replaced by the aching sorrow. 

"...and with the protests-danger of rioting-" 

"What protests?" 

"Haven't you heard, milady? The Emperor has just dissolved the Senate for good and all. A lot of people aren't happy about it." 

"No! No, I heard nothing. How could I, when I spent the morning with my head stuck in my hyperdrive?" 

"Tomorrow morning, first thing!" he promised hastily. 

I took a swing by the Senate building on my way back to _Swift_. Around the circular building, a restless crowd milled. A few rabble rousers were speechifying near its foot. 

"Justice...freedom...democracy...!" 

_Stupid_, I thought, _talking insurrection in the heart of the Empire, practically within spitting distance of the old demon himself._ I shivered as I remembered what I had felt-or imagined-below the Imperial Palace the night before. 

_Princess Leia would be so angry if she knew that the Senate-_

The train of my thought was interrupted as I heard the clink and stamp of an approaching stormtrooper detachment. I restarted my speeder hurriedly. _The best part of courage is knowing when to run_, was one of Shamma's sayings. Much of the crowd seemed to have the same idea, and was melting away like snow in sunlight. But not fast enough. As I gunned the speeder's engine, I heard the sharp crack of blaster rifle fire behind me. 

_Too close for comfort, laserbrains_, I scolded myself. _That'll choke off the treasonable talk, all right._ But I was guilty of more than talk, I thought. I had directly supported the Rebel Alliance, the traitors. If my recent past were known to the Imperials, I would undoubtedly be shot as fast as the protesters outside the Senate. What had I got myself into? But a regime that could do what I had just witnessed was wrong. I knew with my heart and bones that I would not wish myself uninvolved. 


	6. Sunset and Sunrise

I ate in a somewhat seedy diner that evening. Probably if I had returned to Avram's, Ghesli or some of the other managers would have fed me again, but I had no desire to do that. The diner's food was sustaining enough, and I made polite conversation to no one. The viewscreen in one corner of the diner was showing the pod-races on Malastare. I watched it with half an eye as I ate. The speeds those things were going at must be awesome, I thought, and I was sure no human pilot could manage the stunts these aliens were pulling off. Suddenly, the broadcast was cut short. Instead of the sports channel, a rumpled-looking newscaster appeared on the screen. 

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a breaking news report," she intoned. "A serious disaster has occurred in the Alderaan system..." 

My glass dropped to the ground and shattered. 

"...possibility of a meteor strike..." 

I let out a high-pitched panicky animal sound, leaping to my feet, running for the entrance, cannoning into tables and patrons and the doorjamb in my blind desperation. No one made any move to stop me; everyone gazed, mesmerised, at the ongoing transmission: "...all communications from the planet ceased abruptly..." 

I reached my speeder, and drove for the Alderaanian Embassy as though the Corellian Furies were behind me. As though, by reaching the Embassy, I could save my home, could make the news untrue. The road leading up to the Embassy was jammed with traffic, speeders darting this way and that like a swarm of angry insects. I dived for the surface, klaxons blaring and lights flashing at me. I ditched the speeder and sprinted for the Embassy. _It isn't true, it isn't true_, my feet beat out to the rhythm of my running. My breath sobbed in my throat. I rounded the last turn in the road and skidded to a standstill. The Embassy building, outlined against the sunset, was swathed in purple. Bed linen, towels, gowns, curtains...from every window and vantage point flapped and fluttered the signs of mourning. And from the open entrance came the low keening sound of sorrow, of women sounding the deathwail. 

Inside the Embassy was chaos. Grown men wept openly as they stood, people screamed out denials or swore vengeance, strangers clung to each other for comfort. 

"The Empire, it was the Empire," the voices accused. "A superweapon-the Death Star." 

I couldn't take in the information. I wandered through the Embassy, through crowds pale and wide-eyed from shock. Some practical person had ordered the culinary droids to dispense soup and kaff. 

"Keitin!" someone shouted. I turned, bewildered, to see Ari Oharran, tears streaking his face. We ran into each other's arms, clinging on as if for life itself. 

"Ari, oh, Ari!" I cried against his shoulder. "I can't believe that they just-just blew everything up-" 

"They're evil," Ari choked out. "How could they-" 

The night wore on like a horrible dream. More and more people kept arriving-any Alderaani on Coruscant, people who had family or friends on the planet. News began to filter through; from the orbital stations, the moon bases, from ships that had been in-system. Alderaan had been utterly destroyed by an Imperial battlestation the size of a moon. They had had a little warning on Alderaan of the battlestation's arrival-a few minutes merely. There had been a panicked rush for anything hyperspace-capable. Very few made it. 

Towards morning, two distraught-looking men, still in their standard ATT flightsuits, pushed their way through the crowd at the entrance. One of them recognised me and came over-I was sitting with my back against one of the porch pillars, hugging my knees and staring out into the night, hoping against hope that Shamma would come up the road, or that I would wake in my own bed from this horrible dream. He clasped the hand I held out to him. 

"I am glad to see you alive at any rate, little _Inia_. We dropped into realspace at home with no warning. Tthere's nothing there but asteroids and floating rock..." 

He shook his head, close to tears. Misha, his name was. I used to sit in his cockpit as a child, 'piloting' the ship. I tasted blood. I had bitten my thumbnail to the quick without even noticing I was doing it. 

"And my grandmother? The _Inia_?" 

"I don't know-I'm sorry." 

I said nothing-there was nothing to say. 

-~-~-~-~- 

By morning, it was certain that neither my grandmother nor Ari's family had escaped. No starships had left Aldera. I did not cry, not then. I had wept for Leia, but this grief was too raw, too great for me to take in. Coruscant's sun rose blood-red that morning, its light staining the smog in the eastern sky. I watched it rise, sitting on the edge of a speeder platform outside the Embassy. _I will never see the sun rise over the Glasbens again_, I thought. It seemed impossible. I was shivering as though I had never been warm in my life, and there was a dull pain in my solar plexus. My mind circled aroung the brutal fact; Shamma is dead, and Dan and Iruben and Ged, Finn and Lusar and the baby and little Yemi, Uncle Tad and Aunt Shosha and the Viceroy…Kolm and Bailey and Princess Leia, and Shamma. _Shamma_…I had thought I was prepared to lose my grandmother, but sitting outside the Embassy on that cold foggy morning I discovered how wrong I had been. 

I heard footsteps behind me, and turned my head to see Ari, with a mug of soup in each hand. I took one from him. 

"Thanks, Ari." 

"Where's the Rebellion at?" he asked without preamble. "I know you're involved, or at least your grandmother is." 

"I'm only involved with Supply," I replied. "I'm not a soldier." 

"It's all fighting _them_, isn't it? It's good enough for me-any way I can hit them. I hate them!" 

He kicked the ground savagely. 

"You shouldn't talk that way," I said automatically. I had not yet considered what I was going to do now, but becoming a fully-fledged Rebel seemed the obvious choice. I couldn't think beyond that, and I did not want to. 

"It's true-you can't tell me you don't feel the same." 

I said nothing. Ari sat down beside me, swinging his legs.He blew on his soup, and then asked me, "Do you know where to go? I suppose you have that nice ship of yours with you on Coruscant?" 

I rubbed a grimy hand across my forehead. 

"Her hyperdrive's out at the minute-which reminds me, I'll have to get hold of that module. Do you have a speeder, Ari?" 

"No, but one of the fellows I work with does, and he talked like he was interested in the Rebellion-I'm sure he would come with us, now." 

I felt better when I had something practical to do. In the end, not one, but three of Ari's friends came back to _Swift_ with us; Solik, the owner of the landspeeder, another young man named Tev, and Bailin, a dark-haired girl with such a perfect figure that I felt an instant resentment of her. We swung by ATT to pick up my hyperdrive motivator. If the place had been been disorganised by the news of Princess Leia's death, it was in chaos now. Nearly everyone had, if not immediate family, then friends or relatives on Alderaan. I only got hold of the motivator by pointing out at some length that I now owned a considerable portion of the company. Actually under Alderaanian law, the shares belonging to my family would not revert to me until seven years after their unproven deaths, but no one was in the mood to quibble. Later on, the lawyers would descend like carrion birds on the spoils of Alderaan, but the day after the atrocity was a little too soon for the wrangling to arise. 

Solik was a mechanic, so we had my hyperdrive working in short order. 

"I hope you know where you are going," Tev said to me as we lifted into orbit. 

"Of course she knows," Ari snapped defensively. And I did know. The coordinates were not programmed into the navicomputer, but I had them by heart. The base was in a remote system, but not absolutely in the Outer Rim. Somewhere in its maze of asteroids and small cratered planets, someone coordinated supplies for the entire Gamma Quadrant of the galaxy. The usual procedure for receiving messages and orders was to drop into realspace a few lightminutes from the system, and pick up the radio frequencies broadcast from Headquarters. Even the Empire could not monitor every sub-light communication in every tiny system under its hegemony. 

Our hyperspace trip was long, even for _Swift_'s refurbished engine. I was woken from a restless doze, full of troubled dreams, by the blaring of the proximity indicator. 

"What's that beeping?!" 

I rubbed my sore, gritty eyes. 

"We're a bit close to the comet swarm for comfort, is all," I reassured my worried companions. I flicked on the comm as I moved the _Swift_ a bit closer in-system, tuning it to the usual frequency. 

"Grandfather, this is V-195-Omega. Do you read me?" 

There was a delay of around half a minute before the comm crackled a reply. 

"Reading you, V-195-Omega. What are you doing in-system at this time?" 

"Did you hear about Alderaan?" I demanded. 

"Is it true?" 

"I've spoken to eyewitnesses. It's true, all right." I swallowed, clutching at my composure, before continuing, "There are five people here who want to join you. May we land?" 

The silence was longer this time, but eventually the voice replied, in sombre tones, "Stay where you are. A fighter escort is being sent out to guide you in." 

The escort, when it arrived almost a standard hour later, consisted of two Z-95 Headhunters and a Clone Wars-era Delta-Seven. 

"Visual confirmed," the Delta-Seven called back to base. "V-195-Omega, follow our flight pattern." 

It was a nerve-racking flight, skimming the edges of the asteroid belt before plunging among it, to a larger than usual one, cratered and shattered. The snubfighters disappeared into a crevasse in the rock, and I followed more catiously. The Supply and Procurement HQ was tiny, hollowed out of the centre of the asteroid, manned by a mere handful. I never knew the name of the system, but it went by the nickname of 'the Coop'. From there the network stretched out between the stars, from old women knitting socks on backwater planets, to pilots and soldiers in the hidden military bases. And between these went we supply runners, in battered freighters and swift corvettes and luxury yachts, transporting everything from hyperdrives to hyrospanners to hyuda eggs. Not the most glamourous job to go down in history, but certainly very necessary. 

A couple of wary-eyed young pilots, hands on their blasters, ushered us five recruits into the boss' presence. 'Grandfather', despite his codename, was in his thirties, a tall man with anxious eyes. 

"You're all Alderaani?" he asked. Ari nodded confirmation. 

"Allow me to offer you my deepest sympathy. This is an outrage, a terrible tragedy." He cleared his throat and continued, "I must tell you that the Rebel Alliance is also in danger from that battlestation; it is unlikely to find us here, but if the Empire knows the location of the military base-however, you should all rest now, and get something to eat. We must simply wait." 

I'd forgotten how long it was since I had had solid food, and my stomach growled loudly at the thought of it. In the small canteen, Bailin muttered to Ari, "What's the point of joining a Rebellion that's about to be blown up as well?" 

He shrugged, moving to collect a portion of rations. We were eating when an excited messenger pelted in. 

"They did it! They did it! We're saved! They blew up that thing!" 

She waved a piece of flimsiplast in the air. The people in the cantina cheered loudly, rushing up to her, clamoring for details. "Some hotshot kid in an X-wing...proton torpedoes...blew it all to hell..." she gabbled. 

We Alderaani did not join in the ensuing celebrations. But I saw the fierce exultation in Ari's face, and shivered. I was hollow, as though my soul had been torn from me. I could find no joy, no vengeance satisfied, not even any relief. I just felt tired. 

-~-~-~-~- 

Ari and I were assigned together for runs, in _Swift_. Our first transfer was on Osis Prime. Ari was nervous, pacing up and down the _Swift_'s corridor. 

"Sit _down_, Ari," I snapped at last. "And stop _worrying_-nothing's going to happen." 

He smiled wanly. 

"Is this the boy who told Princess Leia that he would fight for the Rebellion? What would she say if she were alive to see you now?" 

"Didn't you hear? She _is_ alive!" 

I gave an undignified yelp. "Leia's alive? How?" 

"Apparently she was an Imperial prisoner, and that kid who blew up the Death Star rescued her. Skywalker or some fancy name like that." 

I curled my feet under me on my pilot's chair. "They haven't won," I said. 

Ari stared. "Who said they had?" 


	7. The Exiles

_Ninthmonth 1100_

It took some weeks for the reality of Alderaan's destruction to sink in. When it did, it hit hard. I missed my grandmother and my home every hour I was awake, and I woke from dreams of home with my face wet with tears. I cut myself off, set a foggy barrier between myself and the rest of the universe. I was a shadow, a ghost. Once, packing in the hold, I cut my hand and was surprised to see myself bleeding. It was almost a relief to feel real pain, to distract me from the cold ache that I carried always behind my breastbone. After my hand was out of bacta wrap and had stopped stinging like hell every time I moved it, I missed the pain. So I would take my belt knife and press it against the inside of my arm until the blood flowed. 

One evening, Ari entered the galley where I was chopping vegetables for stew. I dropped the cook's knife guiltily, tugging down my left sleeve. 

"There's blood on your arm-how did you manage to cut yourself up there?" 

A crismson stain was blossoming on the white gauzine of my sleeve. Before I could stop him, Ari had twitched it back to my elbow, exposing my entire forearm. Across its soft inside surface were a dozen narrow scars, both half-healed and fresh. 

"How the hell-?" Ari exclaimed. I jerked away, and stuck my arm under the gush of the cold-water sprigot. 

"I'm fine!" I snapped. 

"Did you do that to-to yourself?" Ari asked, horrified. 

"Leave me alone!" I snarled, my voice catching. Ari gasped; I had grabbed the knife off the counter at some point, and was waving it under his nose. He took a couple of steps backwards, and brought up against the refridge unit. There was a breathless silence as Ari and I stared fearfully at each other. 

"You're bleeding on the floor, Keit," he whispered at last. I looked from the knife in my hand to my bloody arm, and shuddered. Ari, gaining confidence, moved forward a little. 

"Give me the knife, Keitin. Good girl-just leave it there." 

He lifted the galley medkit from its slot in the wall, and started tending to my arm. 

"Don't you think the Alliance loses enough blood to the Empire without this sort of thing?" he said, spreading bacta gel on my arm. "Don't you think we have a better use for this?" 

I stared down at the floor, ashamed. 

"I don't know why I do it, Ari. I-I want to go home!" 

"Don't we all." 

He fastened the sterile dressing onto my cut and put his arms round me. 

"Don't ever do anything that stupid again, Keitin. Please. We're all that's left now, you and I..." 

Perhaps it was that blatant appeal to my emotions that did the trick, but I never did. 

_Twelvethmonth 1100_

Our first Life Day after Alderaan was spent kicking our heels in an obscure spaceport, wafting for a consignment. We were both thoroughly miserable. The spaceport was full of revellers celebrating the holiday, but the grieving in _Swift_ was palpable. I came from having a good cry in my cabin to find Ari flicking morosely through _Swift_'s music database. He found the _Ryla_ just as I entered. 

"We danced that at little Chama's Naming," I told him. "She would have been almost a yearold now-crawling about and trying to stand." 

"Blast them!" Ari said viciously. He stood and held out his hands to me. "We'll dance it again, Keit, dance it for all the babies and for the downfall of their damned Empire!" 

And so we danced, wordlessy, the whirling, swinging traditional dance of Aldera. When the track ended, Ari pulled me against him, and I leaned my head on his chest. We stayed that way for a long time. Then Ari gave a brief sigh and said, "Let's go out and see if we can't have some fun. I'll go mad stuck in here." 

"'Fun' wouldn't involve alcohol, would it? Because we can't-it's too dangerous, considering what we know." 

He tugged one of my curls. 

"No, my little captain, it won't. Don't worry, we'll think of something." 

We crept out of _Swift_ feeling like a pair of ten-year-olds skiving school. We found a shop that hired out decrepit swoop bikes, and went for a ride. 

"Six punti to an Imperial credit it breaks down," I said, prodding the bike. 

"Whatever happened to being optimistic?" 

"I _am_ being optimistic-this way, if it _does_ break down I'll be better off than I was." 

As it happened, it didn't break down. We sped through the streets, flying dangerously close to revelling pedestrians, soaring round corners, laughing and whooping like maniacs. I am sure people thought that we were drunk, and indeed it was a way of drowning our sorrows in a speed-induced exhilaration. We wandered back to _Swift_ afterwards, arm in arm. 

"Feel better?" Ari asked. I glanced up at him shyly and nodded. "Yeah, me too." 

Looking back, that was when I fell in love with him. It was almost inevitable that I did so. He was invariably kind, eternally optimistic despite what we had suffered, funny-and handsome. At eighteen perhaps that has more of an influence than it ought. 

I wasn't unhappy, not at first, even though Ari showed no sign of reciprocating my feelings. In the close proximity of _Swift_, he could not have avoided me if he wished to. It was enough for me to see him every day, to hear his voice. I would concoct elaborate schemes to touch his hand without raising suspicion. This diet of glimpses and dreams was enough to keep my passion alive. I could love with very little encouragement. And I got very little. Ari was apparently oblivous and unresponsive to my infatuation for him. 

That was a good time, on the whole. Our lives consisted of periods of boredom interspersed with nerve-wracking missions, but our idealism and young nerve carried us through. Sometimes, it was even fun. 

Slowly, our grief healed. It helped that we were constantly on the move, with little time to brood over our loss. We followed our orders from star to star, system to system, part of the great galactic web of support for the rebel Alliance. _Swift_, with her small size and her speed, was of most use for fast trips with a small payload. We heard little of the military's success or otherwise against the Imperium, just rumours, spacers' talk. If we had been part of the raids on Imperial supplies and facilities, we would have seen more, but the thought of Ari swayed me against volunteering for anything too dangerous. 


	8. Growing Pains

_Eighthmonth 1102_

Over a year went by like this. Little had changed on the wide scene of the war or the small scene of _Swift_ and her crew. We were on another trip to Serpial, with a cargo of medical supplies this time. I spent the hyperspace trip exercising in the hold, as had become my habit. Physical activity kept off the boredom of hyperspace, and I slept better for it, without dreams. Besides, it was as well to keep in good shape-we never knew when we would have to run. The support struts and beams of _Swift_'s hold provided me with a makeshift gymnasium. I was swinging off a beam by my knees when Ari came down to me. 

"We're coming into realspace soon," he reminded me. "You had better be ready." 

I flipped down onto my bare feet and looked around for my jacket. 

"On that crate," Ari pointed out. 

"Thanks." I smiled up at him. "You read my mind!" 

"I know it well enough by now," Ari said. For some reason this pleased me, and I walked up to the cockpit with him in a happy daze. It lasted until I realised he was talking about Suki Zerah, a girl who worked at the Supply base. 

"She's really kind, really friendly," he enthused. "She makes you feel like you're doing her a favour by talking to her." 

"Oh," I said gloomily. "How lovely." 

"She's dead gorgeous too-" 

I snorted. I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice as I exclaimed, "Is that all you think about? Typical male!" 

"Anyone would think you were jealous," Ari said lightly. I adjusted the viewscreen in front of me, my face hot. Ari was gazing at me, and the more he looked, the more I blushed. 

"Keit," he said doubtfully, "you _aren't_-you don't-" 

I could bear it no longer. I snapped "Shut up!" at him and swung out of my seat, tears of mortification stinging my eyes. I bolted for the head, thumping the door control hard. 

"Keitin," Ari's voice, through the door, sounded muffled and concerned, "Keiti, I'm sorry-I didn't, I didn't know-" 

"Obviously!" I yelled, and choked back an angry sob. 

"Keitin, please come out! We'll be landing soon-" 

"Do it yourself, why don't you-_you_ don't need me!" 

After Ari had made the landing, I washed my face and emerged reluctantly. 

"Keitin," Ari began uncertainly. I smiled tightly. 

"Can we not talk about it, Ari? Please?" 

"'Kay," he said, and tweaked the end of my plait. I had never felt so humiliated in all my life. 

-~-~-~-~- 

It was worse, after that. There were nights when I cried, not for my lost home and family, but for Ari and his non-existent love for me. "Ari, _why_ can't you love me?" I would whisper to the walls of my cabin. I would lie awake for hours, fighting the pain of my rebel heart. I lost weight-not that I could spare any, after Alderaan. I missed Shamma dreadfully. I was sure that she would have had some comfort or advice to give me. I knew so little about men-odd, considering my cousins had all been boys. But I had never learned the rules of the dance that we humans call love. I was inept-the only way I would ever manage to be happy was if I fell for someone who was already in love with me, I thought bitterly-and what were the chances of that? 

_Never_, I swore to myself, _never will I love anyone like this again. It hurts too much._

_Firstmonth 1103_

Relations between us were strained and awkward after that, and when 'Grandfather' assigned us a rookie to break in, I jumped at the chance of a third party in _Swift_. There would be fewer strained silences then. 

Our new recruit was a tow-headed boy named Rix Ha'Alori, with the clear amber eyes and tan skin of the planet Thura. Ari and I were young, but Rix seemed ridiculously so. 

"How old are you? Fifteen standard?" Ari asked him when we met. 

"I'll be seventeen soon," he said sullenly. Ari rolled his eyes, but I remembered I had been sixteen when I started running supplies, and shrugged. 

Predictably, Rix was bored silly in hyperspace, so Ari challenged him to sabacc, and fleeced him. I watched, trying to maintain my dignity as _Swift_'s captain and not burst into laughter. Rix was so innocent, and Ari kept sending me conspiratorial glances. 

It must have been our second or third trip with Rix when we went to Ulasas. I let him pilot us in-"It's not everybody gets their hands on her precious ship," Ari teased. Despite my misgivings, Rix managed not to prang us on the spaceport's control tower, and we made an orthodox, if not entirely smooth landing. 

"Ari and I are going to pick up the goods," I told Rix. "Stay with the ship." 

I strapped on my blaster in its tie-down holster, snapped the elastic bracelet with my comlink onto my wrist. 

"Got your ID, Ari?" 

"Yes. I'm ready to go, are you?" 

I scooped up my own ID and tucked it into my belt pouch. 

"Don't go anywhere now," I admonished Rix, and we left. Ari and I walked through an open marketplace on the way to our contact. We were meant to be picking up a large order of welders, at cutprice rates, at a warehouse on the other side of the town. All spaceports are much the same, no matter where in the galaxy they may be. The same seedy cantinas, tapcafes and diners, the same exotic mix of species, the same tarts, the same smell of ionised gases and engine fuel. 

The ramshackle warehouses on the other side of town were pretty standard too. Our contact was a stout old lady with a small red-headed granddaughter. Ari greeted her and gave the codeword. She spat out the countersign, and waddled back into the dark coolness of the warehouse. I followed her. 

"Get that special loaded!" she yelled at her droid workforce, then turned to me. "I want to see the colour of your credits before this gets loaded." 

"Surely," I said wearily, holding out a handful of credit chips. "I'll give them to you back at our ship. Docking bay forty-two." 

"Transport'll cost you extra!" she warned. I shook my head in exasperation, and stalked back to Ari, who was making conversation with Fire-top, seated cross-legged on the burning earth. 

"We're being charged for transport, as if we had credits to fling around," I told him. He gave me a wry look, twisting his eyebrows up at me. 

"Nana! That man was back again!" the child called to her grandmother. 

"Was he? I'll tell him to be off if I catch him," she growled, adding to us, "Some stinking tramp. And the Imps have set up a new outpost, other side of the port. Got a Star destroyer in orbit around Prime, so they say. Never bothered us much on Three, up till now. Still, you have no call to go out that side of the port." 

"Not so good," I said to Ari as we walked away. "I have a bad feeling about this." 

"Like she said, we need not go out there. It'll be okay," Ari reassured me. 

Walking back through the market, Ari was distracted by a stall selling some sort of native insect. 

"You like? You buy?" the vendor asked. 

"What do you use them for?" Ari asked. A long and involved explanation followed, interspersed with local dialect. My attention wandered. 

Black and white armour. On the far side of the marketplace, but approaching fast. 

"Oh, no," I said. Ari looked at me, and I signalled with my eyes at the approaching stormtroopers. 

"Stang!" he breathed. "We won't buy anything. Too expensive," he told the stall owner. We started moving towards the docks, the poor man's expostulations trailing us. Ari took my hand. 

"Act casual," he muttered in my ear. 

"Keep walking, Ari!" 

The troopers were demanding ID, pretty well cutting off our escape route. 

"Me first," I told Ari, tugging my hand free. I had a reason for this; everyone expects a woman to lag in a marketplace. When the troopers had passed my ID, I paused at a stall selling jewellery, positioned myself so that I could see the Imperials in the square of mirror provided for customers, and waited. 

Now here Ari came to the troopers, flashed his ID-and was pushed back by a rifle butt. 

My breath stopped in my throat. Ari was arguing with the troopers, but now they had hold of his arms. I tensed, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I put down the necklace I was holding with a regretful shake of the head, and loosened my blaster in its holster. I pushed my way back towards the Imperials, then yelled, "Stop, thief!!", plunging past shoppers, pointing at some hapless teenager. The troopers were staring round, confused, as other pedestrians took up my cry. I was almost at point-blank range now. I got one of them at the first shot, and winged another. Ari reacted instantly to my rescue attempt, hooking the legs from below his captor. The young cadet who was in charge of the checkpoint spun round, fumbling for his blaster, but I was onto him in one bound. I rammed the muzzle beneath his ear and fired. His eyes, dark and terrified, turned on me for a moment before he died. It was a nasty mess. I had exchanged shots with TIE fighters before, but I had never killed at close range. I stood sickened for a moment before Ari's voice roused me. 

"C'mon!" 

The panic had become a stampede. Ari and I, grasping each other's wrists, dived through bewildered shoppers, cannoning into people heedlessly as we ran for the ship. 

"Old sow must have informed on us!" I panted. 

"Nah-it was-the guy-the kid saw-didn't look like a crazy to me." 

I flipped on my comlink. However the thing had happened, we had to get out, and fast. 

"Rix, do you copy? Rix, get her warm. Trouble. Yeah. Bad-very bad." 

"The kid'll be wetting his pants," Ari said, grinning. We sprinted down the dusty road, the buildings ahead of us shimmering in the heat-haze. 

"Nearly there," Ari panted encouragingly. We skidded down to our docking bay, seeing the safe refuge of _Swift_ ahead of us. 

"Shields up!" I yelled at Rix as we hurtled up the ramp. I jabbed the door control-just in time, for a laser blast jolted the ship as I pelted for the cockpit. Ari swore, and Rix shrieked. I flung myself into my seat, checked the shields and started _Swift_ rising on her repulsorlifts. 

"There are dozens of stormtroopers coming," Ari said tonelessly. 

"Get on the bow gun," I ordered. Another shot jarred the ship violently, and I heard Ari yelp. My hands trembled on the controls, waves of alternate heat and cold washing over me. _This isn't true, it can't be happening_, I thought. Rix whimpered. 

"Better strap down, this could get a little bumpy," I ordered, wriggling into my own straps. The comm squawked. 

"Unidentified ship, please transmit your traffic clearance." 

"Stang," I said, and kicked in the sublight drive. 

"Unidentified ship, do you have a-you can't use your drive so close to the space port!" 

I ignored the comm, and headed _Swift_ towards open space. The port authorities sounded almost as panicky as Rix, who was muttering, "We're dead...we're dead," his eyes wide. Suddenly, a new voice came over the comm, a clipped, authoritative voice. 

"Unidentified ship, turn around and land, by order of the Imperium." 

I snapped the comm off, and turned to Rix. "_Now_ we're dead. Stand by for trouble, Ari!" 

_Swift_ was already pushing her utmost, Ulasas receding swiftly. I glanced at the gravity indicators. Nowhere near far enough out yet. I slid to the navicomputer and input a set of coordinates. 

"TIEs," Ari's voiced came tightly. I swung back to the viewscreen. The fighters were coming in fast, their trails of infra-red radiation leaving crimson streaks along the sensor screen. Bored troops stationed on a backwater planet, with we Rebels falling fortuitously into their grasp. I sacrificed a shade of precious speed to throw more power to the shields, and tilted _Swift_ so that she was edge-on to the fighters. Ari fired enthusiastically if ineffectually at the fighters as they approached. They swerved a bit, fanning out to pinion _Swift_ back against the planet. Green fire splattered against the shields, jostling me in my chair. Rix hid his eyes. Our bow gun spoke again, winging one this time. It went spinning off out of my view, and Ari whooped. I chewed at my left thumbnail, feeding the coordinates from the navicomputer to the hyperdrive, wondering suddenly what I was fighting so hard for, and what it would be like to die. We would suffocate if the hull breached; it would be quick. Easy. 

I cut _Swift_ to a new vector, angling away from the fighters, and swore in Corellian. The gravity well indicator turned green at last, and I made the jump. Outside, the starlines collapsed into the familiar white noise of hyperspace. I sank down in the seat, stetching my cramped fingers. Rix scrambled out of the cockpit, face greenish. Ari passed him in the other direction and sank down onto the co-pilot's seat. 

"That," he said fervently, "was too close." 

"Damn right," I said vaguely, wrapping my arms round my waist to stop their trembling. My eyes unfocused, the chaos outside the cockpit blurring. They said a man could go blind or mad from staring at it too long. _Swift_ hummed soothingly around us. 

"Ari, you're bleeding," I observed, and reached for the medkit. He had a nasty cut on the side of his forehead, and didn't know where it had come from. 

"There's one good thing about all this," he said as I dressed the cut. 

"What?" 

"We never paid the old woman." 

I started laughing, a gasping sort of laughter that was half sobbing. The fresher door slammed, and Rix reemerged, his face merely white instead of green-grey. 

"Feeling better?" Ari asked, a trace of his usual grin tugging his mouth. Rix scowled. 

"Where are we going now?" he asked me, ignoring Ari. I stopped laughing, with an effort. 

"Good question," I said, leaning over the navicomputer. If I had typed in bad coordinates in my haste...I gave a grim smile at what the computer flashed up on my screen. 

"We're going to a graveyard." 

Rix gave me a bewildered stare, but Ari frowned. 

"Oh, _no_, Keitin-" 

"It's as good as anywhere." 

"Where?" Rix asked. Ari glared. 

"She automatically input Alderaan's coordinates when we were under fire. I suppose they're the ones she knows best." 

"But Alderaan's-" 

"Don't say it, we know," Ari snapped. I got up and made for the fresher, tuning the boys out. Ari's blood was on my hands, the water swirling brownish down the drain. I leaned against the wall, feeling sick and shaky. I peeled off my shirt and trousers and got in the shower, allowing myself the luxury of a water shower for once. As I dried off in my cabin, the hyperspace indicator chimed. I pulled on a dress as the proximity alarm added its tone to the clamour. 

"Keitin, asteroids! Oh, stang...!" 

I had never been back. People did, I knew. Those suffering morbid curiosity, survivors saying farewell to their loved ones. Suicides. But this was the first time I had revisited the shards of Alderaan. Rix and Ari stood silently in the cockpit, looking out at the asteroid field. A very ordinary asteroid field, with nothing to show it had once been a world; a world with sunsets and mountains and wide green plains, children going to school and playing at being pilots, young mothers, flowers, families, pet aldri, love and life. 

"The Graveyard of Alderaan," Ari said, very quietly. 

"I didn't realise properly, before," Rix said. "They just blew it all to bits, didn't they?" 

"Yes," I said. "Sixty million people and a planet turned to so much drifting space dust. Well, back to the Coop, I suppose." 

I turned to the navicomputer. 

"The asteroid's a bit too close," Ari said. I looked. 

"I wonder which bit it was-perhaps the Glasbens, or the Nangal Mountain." 

Something in me seemed to snap, and when we were in hyperspace I went out into the corridor and cried, sobbed and wailed, calling for my grandmother and my dead family. I wound up face down on the _Swift_'s cold planking, my damp hair falling about me, screaming against the galaxy and the Empire and the cruelty of life. I cried and cried till I was drained and empty, and fell asleep on the hard floor. 

-~-~-~- 

I sat in the entry to the airlock, hugging my knees, the gentle vibration of _Swift_'s hyperdrive lulling me. Ari had been standing behind me, watching me, for at least ten minutes. I jerked my head at him, impatiently. 

"Sit down, if you're going to, and stop hovering like that." 

"Thinking of jumping out?" he said, sitting. 

"No-every living Alderaani is a poke in the eye for the Empire." 

"Oh, _Keitin_. Is that it?" 

"What else is there? Everybody I love is dead." 

"Apart from me." 

"Oh, bother you. Half time you only make me miserable." 

He looked hurt, so I said, "Sorry, Ari. I didn't mean it like that. I'm just so tired, and I think I'm starting a head cold." 

"Poor you." 

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I watched his profile out of the tail of my vision; his familiar face and anxious blue eyes beneath the untidy dark hair. I was very conscious of loving him. A great weariness with myself came over me; I was tired of this unnecessary sorrow, tired of the round of emotions I trod daily. The reaction to our narrow escape had set in, and I felt dreadful. 

"I suppose I saved your life back there," I remarked. I would have expected to feel gratified at that, but I did not. 

"I wish you hadn't had to," Ari said. 

"Why?" 

"I don't like being in your debt-not with the way you feel about me." 

I stared. "Ari, what the hell-" I was too tired and bewildered to be angry, though I felt as if I should be, and might be, later. Ari rubbed his hands over his eyes. 

"I dunno, Keitin. There's nothing I can ever do to pay you back, y'know? Not even make you happy." 

"I've forgotten what 'happy' feels like. Ironic, isn't it? The Empire and home and everything, and here we sit, screwing things up for ourselves. How did we manage it?" 

Ari considered, sucking at his teeth. 

"I think a man and a woman, you know, there are two different directions they can take from friendship-loving, or brotherhood." 

"And we took different directions, is that what you're trying to say?" 

"I suppose so. I'm sorry, Keitin." 

"So am I." 

And we fell back into uneasy silence as _Swift_ drove us onward. 


	9. Farther In

Back at the Coop, the three of us were questioned and requestioned about the fiasco on Ulasas. Ari lost his temper a couple of times; I was merely worried. 

"I don't see how they could possibly blame us," Rix said anxiously. 

"Don't worry, they don't," I reassured him. "Not you anyway, for you were kicking your heels back on _Swift_." 

We were watching as a couple of astromech droids and technicians refuelled and checked over _Swift_. I sat on the landing ramp, swinging my feet. Rix was sprawled down the middle of it, chin on his fists. 

"How come you're so good at everything, Keitin?" he asked admiringly. I nearly fell off the ramp. 

"Oh, I'm not. Shamma-my grandmother-made me learn how to fly and shoot, and I can't do much else, really. I don't know what sort of job I would have got if there hadn't been a war on." 

"Pilot," he suggested. 

"Actually, I miss being planetside. The stars are very beautiful, but I want to feel grass under my feet and see mountains and blue water again. I'd probaby have been a middle-ranking ATT manager or engineer, and eventually have been married and had babies." 

"How boring!" 

I laughed. "Rix, haven't you learned the value of a quiet life yet? I wish I had had the opportunity to have one." 

Ari appeared at the far side of the hangar. I wondered, if I had had my quiet life, would I still have loved him. Probably not, for he had worked on Coruscant. I could not imagine I would ever have had many suitors, with my dubious descent. However, I was an Avram, and that had once counted for something. I imagined Aunt Shosha and Aunt Talith trying to manage my love life, and grinned. Getting them to agree with each other would have been a major feat, let alone with Shamma or with me. 

"Hey," Ari said, flopping down on the ramp beside Rix. "Apparently it has been decided that the total screw-up on Ulasas was in no way our fault, and we are completely exonerated of all blame." 

"They never said 'total scew-up', Ari!" I exclaimed. 

"No, but they said all the rest of it," he returned lazily. 

"Vann Zeiss had a look at _Swift_'s electronic log and he said you did great to get out of there at all," Rix told us. I grinned smugly, then remembered what it had actually been like under TIE fire, and how little room there had been for heroics. My grin faded. 

"They're looking for more bodies for the Imperial raids, so I hear," Ari remarked after a brief silence. I sneezed twice. 

"'Bodies' will be about right," I said. "I had actually rather be dead than in Imperial custody." 

"I think most people would," Ari replied, shuddering. "Come to think of it, Keitin, we would be the logical choice for them-no families. It wouldn't surprise me if 'Grandfather' pulled in one of us." 

Before he had finished speaking, I had decided with all the fervour of twenty that I would rather be dead than lose Ari. 

"If he does, I'll go," I said quickly. 

"Nah, why should you, you're younger." 

"What does that have to do with anything?" 

He shifted uneasily beneath my gaze. 

"I honestly don't think you could cope, Keitin. I mean, emotionally, after-" 

"Oh, don't you, Ari Oharran?" 

I scrambled to my feet, not listening to the end of his sentence, and stamped off. _I'll show him-not able to cope, indeed! I'll get killed, and then he will be sorry-it's all his fault!_

I went straight to 'Grandfather' and put myself on his volunteer list. As soon as my fit of childish pique was over, I regretted it, queasy apprehensive fluttering in my stomach, but I had put my hand to this thing and I would not turn back. 

It was two or three missions after that when the call came-a round of raids on Imperial property, to last six weeks or so. Now I was for it. 

_Thirdmonth 1103_

I was dreaming again.. I saw the black-eyed boy I had killed on Ulasas, and a girl weeping over his body. I trembled, knowing that I was dreaming, but unable to wake. Suddenly, the jar of ion engines firing freed me from the dream. I sighed with relief, stretching. I lay on a narrow strip in the hold of a transport, along with the other members of the strike team for our latest raid. The shuttle, I worked out, must be braking from orbit around the planet of Mamrosp. Somewhere down there was the Imperial research and development facility we were going to raid, our target a series of high-tech communications equipment. 

Our leader, codenamed Nek, was rousing the other team members. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, shaking my brain into alertness as we gathered around the holoprotector for a last briefing. 

"The military are providing fighter cover for the transport. The fighters will attack the front part of the facility, here. They will attempt to knock out the shield generators, which will distract the guards from us. You will have to get in, break into this store on Level Two, open the magnetic shield from the inside and let the carrier in. Now, there has been a slight change of plan; you will now be dropped here. That's nearest to door three; who was on that one?" 

I raised my hand, as did another member of the team I had been partnered with. 

"We're counting on you to be the first in, then." Nek grinned. "Now get moving, and may the Force be with you!" 

-~-~-~-~- 

I ran over the door code, and my route in, for one last time. We were crouched on the slope beyond the facility, amid the brushwood and whispering grass. This vegetation was tall enough to cover our movements as we crept to our assigned positions. 

"Fireworks should start around now," my partner, Peko, whispered to me. I stared down at the buildings, biting my nails; the bulk of the main facility outlined against the sky, the low outbuildings huddled round it, and between us and them, the faint shimmer of the energy barrier. As if on cue, I heard the low roar of snubfighters approaching through the atmosphere. 

"This is it," I said. Our comms crackled. 

"Barrier's down-we're in. Go go go!" 

I was up and running, the grass breaking around my legs. It was downhill to the perimeter-a chain fence first, to stop passersby and stray livestock from blundering into the energy barrier and killing themselves. I trotted along it a few paces, looking for a foothold. I braced a foot against one of the supporting poles and grabbed the top rail-only to find that it rotated. My body swung against the fence. 

"Stang!" I swore. Peko gave me a boost from behind, and I managed to haul myself up to perch on top of the post. The aeriel battle was raging fiercely, laserbolts flying, the air full of the smell of ionised gas. One of the X-wings had been hit, and was plunging to the ground. I hauled Peko up and dropped on the inside of the fence. We turned, pulled out our blaster pistols, vaulted the low grid that had generated the energy barrier, and ran. 

My feet pounded on the duracrete, between two sheds, around a corner, along a low building marked 'Munitions Store'. I could see ahead of me an open yard, and on the other side of it our door. I put on an extra spurt of speed, not slackening even when I saw the two figures in black and white armour. I raised my blaster and pulled the trigger. 

Nothing happened. 

My feet were still carrying me forward by their own momentum. The troopers were closer. One of them raised his rifle with a yell. _I'm going to die_, I thought clinically. But before he fired, a shor rang out from my right, and the trooper crumpled. His companion swung round, but before he could get a bead on my defender he also fell. 

"Hey," Peko shouted, waving his blaster. "What d'you think you're playing at?!" 

"My blaster's jammed!" I shouted. "Cover me!" 

More Imperials were appearing from a gate on our right. Peko fired at them; I holstered my useless blaster and ran for the door. It was set in a small alcove, and we dived for its cover. Peko leaned against the jamb, picking off stormtroopers, as I flipped open the cover of the keypad. 

"Hurry up!" 

"I'm trying!" I retorted, my fingers flying over the keys. The door hissed open. I sighed with relief to see an empty corridor, and ducked inside. Peko backed in with a few parting shots. 

"Blast the lock," I ordered, fumbling for my comlink. "Nek, this is Grasshopper. I'm in!" 

"Great, now get that field open!" 

"Yes, _sir_. Grasshopper out." 

I pulled out my blaster again as we jogged down the corridor, wrestling with its catches. 

"Got yourself a working weapon again yet?" Peko asked. 

"Nope. Keep in front of me, and keep your blaster out." 

I could have found the way in my sleep. Two rights, a left, another corridor. We met no one, probably because of the ongoing battle outside. The muffled sounds of it still filtered through to us, and sometimes the ground shook. Through a door and onto a catwalk crossing a floor full of machinery, yawning dark below us. I felt very exposed and vulnerable up on the naked catwalk, although I thought I had finally got my blaster unjammed. 

"Keep your eyes open," Peko warned. The catwalk terminated at another door with its keypad. 

"Holocam!" I hissed. 

"Where?" 

I pointed upwards; Peko blasted it, rousing the echoes. An alarm siren added its wail to the general clamour. 

"I hope it wasn't active," I fretted. Our spies had not been able to discover the code for this door, but we had come prepared. I opened my belt pouches, pulled out a detonator and a small amount of plastic explosive. A hoverbot buzzed up, spinning and beeping. 

"Error! Error! Security Level Gamma or above required to access this area!" 

I fired. The droid crashed smoking against the wall and fell to the distant floor. 

"Blaster's working again, then?" Peko said, packing the explosive against the lock. We activated the detonator and skipped back to a safe distance. It blew with a small _crump_, barely noticeable against the background noise. I ran back to the door and reached inside the smoking hole we had created, glad I was wearing my piloting gloves. I shorted out the wires, and the door opened. 

"Woohoo!" Peko said, and we both grinned with our success. 


	10. And Farther Still

_Fifthmonth 1103_

"Should you be telling us this—isn't it classified?" Ari asked. I shrugged. 

"You couldn't work out any details from what I told you. But button it, 'kay, Rix?" 

The boy nodded, leaning forward. 

"I wish I did exciting stuff like you, Keitin." 

"I nearly died," I muttered. I was feeling miserable. We were headed for the ATT depot on Thura. I was always sent whenever Supply and Procurement had dealings with the remains of Avram Trade and Transport, and it hurt. The familiar architecture and logos and ships' insignia always underlined the fact that Shamma and Alderaan were gone, even if Avram's remained. I had been taking my mind off it by telling Ari and Rix about my recent adventures as part of the strike teams, and finished up with Mamrosp. 

"You are cleared to land on Platform Seventeen," the comm chirped. 

"Thank you." 

"Thank _you_. Have a nice day, and enjoy your stay on Thura," the voice continued sweetly. Ari looked blankly at the comm. 

"Force around, but she's cheerful! Rix, this is your home planet, yes? Anyone around here likely to recognize you?" 

"No," Rix said, smirking. "I come from the far side, where the spaceport controllers are a bit more normal." 

"All the same," I put in, "I want you to stay here, just in case. There's still a risk." 

-~-~-~-~- 

"It seems strange to see so many people with Rix's eyes and colouring," I said to Ari as we walked throught the spaceport together, as we had hundreds of times before. 

"It's just one of those odd genetic build-ups in a population, like half of Alderaan being dark-haired." 

We reached the ATT building than, and the conversation ceased. We rode the turbolift to the overseer's office. He was Corellian, but utterly trustworthy, as far as the Alliance was concerned anyway. 

"I'm interested in a special consignment—usual rates," I opened the conversation. 'Usual rates' meant next to nothing. Evder Rolda, the overseer, glanced furtively around the office. 

"You shouldn't be here, little lady—it's too dangerous. Last month the Imps were here, asking about you—they have a price on your head. I denied everything, of course, but—" 

He pulled a sheet of flimsy from his desk. Beneath a blurred holograph was my name and a bounty of several thousand credits. 

"This is not good," I said, biting at my bottom lip. 

"You said it, Keit," Ari agreed grimly. I studied the holo. It looked like one taken by a security or spy cam. I was fairly certain that it came from Mamrosp—I recognised my shirt. If the Imperials had connected my face and Rebel activities to the Avram name— 

"Is the company implicated, Rolda?" 

"I don't think so, not yet anyway. I managed to put them off. But we'll have to be more careful in future." 

I frowned. I realised my recklessness had destroyed most of ATT's usefulness to the Alliance. If the Empire was to turn its attention on the reduced Avram's traffic, it would have no opportunity to help the Rebels. I was kicking myself. Rolda was so eager to get me out of the building that he conceded to all my requests, but the success was bitter in my mouth. I followed Ari out, pulling my hood close round my face. It was lunch hour, and the hallways were all but empty. I had to trot to keep up with Ari's long stride. 

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Something in my mind was whispering _Danger, danger_. I slowed, glancing around. I must have noted something subconsciously, and I had been in enough bad situations over the last three years not to ignore that nagging sense of danger. 

"What are you stopping for?" Ari asked, annoyed. "You heard him, every second you spend here puts us at risk!" 

We were in the circular entrance hall now. Sun streamed through the tall windows, onto the elaborate pattern of Alderaanian floor tiles, the busts of dead-and-gone managers, the pillared balconies. Hearing footsteps, I pulled Ari behind one of the busts on its pedestal—we had no time to make a dash for the door, and my sense of danger was increasing to paranoia proportions. 

"You'd better be right about this—my foot's going to sleep," Ari whispered in my ear. I was not nearly frightened enough not to notice that we were pressed close together in our alcove, nor to enjoy it. Voices filtered through to us. 

"...tell you, it was her!" 

"But you can't turn her in, Antilles—she's the old lady's granddaughter!" 

My eyes widened. _Stang stang stang!_

"The old lady's dead, and I could be doing with the money. With the new baby and my sister marrying and all..." 

I peered round the bust, as the voices passed us. One of the two men I remembered seeing on our way in. All too evidently he remembered me too. I was sickened by the thought that anyone who worked for Avram's, my family's own company, could think of turning me in, or that anyone could raise their baby on blood money. My hand went to my blaster, but Ari's fingers grasped my wrist before I could draw. I knew he was right. The two men went out to the street as I watched. I craned my neck round to look at Ari. His face was set in its determined mode. 

"Run," he said, pulling me out from the alcove. I skirted the wall, my boots skidding on the tiles in my haste. I paused in the pillared porch, looking both ways along the street. 

"He's heading for the spaceport—alone!" I told Ari. 

"What's the odds there's an Imperial outpost that way too?" he said, already heading after my betrayer. I outstripped Ari as I gained on Antilles. Perhaps Ari's foot hadn't woken up yet, or perhaps I was angrier. I slowed so Antilles wouldn't hear my footsteps, ducking into an entry as he looked behind him. He had a good eight inches of height on me, but my school combat training stood me in good stead. I got the feet from him, grabbing his hair. With my other hand I slammed the butt of my blaster against his skull. He dropped like a pole-axed nerf-calf. 

"Good work!" Ari panted, coming level with me. "Now, run!" 

We dived for the cover of my entry, as people were already hurrying to Antilles' unconscious form. Once we were back in a crowd, we slowed, glancing behind us nervously. I called ahead to Rix, and he met us anxiously at the top of the ramp. 

"What's wrong?" 

"Some nark at Avram's recognised her, and the Imps have a price on her head." 

Rix gave an "Oooh," of horror as I shepherded the two of them into the cockpit. 

"Strap down, we're going," I said, scrambling into my pilot's seat. We streaked away from Thura, _Swift_ responding to my sure touch like a lover, bounding skywards eagerly. I could tell that the boys, like myself, feared a repeat of our pursuit from Ulasas, but we reached hyperspace without further incident. 

-~-~-~-~- 

"You understand, don't you? It's just too great a risk, both for you and for us." 

I stared down at the floor of 'Grandfather's office. 

"I can't help but feel it was my fault," I murmured. He shrugged, face grim. 

"It's the luck of the draw, Avram. Consider yourself fortunate to be alive an not in an Imperial prison. You can still be of use to us here in the Coop." 

He nodded dismissal. It wasn't of my usefulness to the Alliance that I was thinking, but of my impending separation from Ari. I felt as though I would rather have died. I found him outside with Rix, near _Swift_. 

"Well, it's official. I won't be flying any more. You two are on your own. I'm giving _Swift_ completely to the Alliance. I won't be needing her any more—" 

A sob cut off my voice. I swiped angrily at my eyes. 

"Hey," Ari said very gently, "she's just a ship—a good ship, but a ship." 

"You think that's all I'm bothered about?" I retorted, drying my eyes. But I would miss _Swift_ too. She held a hundred memories; Shamma and Dan and the house in Aldera, the Alderaanian sun on her copper flanks, Coruscant and Ulasas and Thura and a thousand worlds between. Ari. 

"I'm going to _miss_ you," I said, smiling weakly. 

"I'm sure we'll see you again," Rix said bracingly; Ari looked uncomfortable. 

"Clear skies—and blessings on your path." It was the old Alderaanian farewell. I hugged them both, and if I lingered longer in Ari's arms who could blame me? I heard the roar of the _Swift_'s takeoff an hour later, but I did not watch her go. I had already said my goodbyes. 

-~-~-~- 

_Sixthmonth 1103_

"Two to the coop," I said into my helmet mike. "Nothing to report. You see anything, One?" 

"Not a sausage," the voice crackled back over the comm. "Talking of sausages, meet you back at the Coop for lunch?" 

"Surely. Two out." 

I turned the fighter's nose towards the asteroid belt. Being the most junior member of the patrol, I had ended up flying the Coop's ancient Delta-Seven. At a guess it was older than I was, but it still served us for our patrols. My astrodroid warbled some comment. I glanced down at the screen. 

"Yup, Arfour, I'm bored too. But look on the bright side—if anything unfriendly did come into the system, we would both be dead. I'm not much use in a combat situation—not in a starfighter anyway. And we can't escape to hyperspace in this thing." 

Arfour opined that he would be better off without me as pilot, and I sighed. _I must have the only hypochondriac astromech in the galaxy_, I thought. I stared out at the starscape, under pretence of doing a visual scan. It was a long time since I had had an opportunity to simply look at the stars, and with only a transparisteel canopy between me and them, the view was glorious. Feeling slightly agoraphobic, I headed for the Coop, the Delta-Seven's sensors alert to asteroids, comets and incoming Rebel traffic. 

Since our unlucky trip to Thura, I had knocked around the Coop, doing any odd jobs that came my way. Flying the routine starfighter patrols, working in the comm room, feeding coded messages into the decrypter, even refuelling and checking over the motley fleet. Even with this, I had a lot of spare time, much of which I spent gazing into nothing and missing Ari. He had been back once since then, and I had seen him briefly, but base rumour hooked him up with Suki Zerah. I was bitterly jealous, and with reason, for he spent as much time with her as with me. 

I landed in the cramped hangar between the Headhunters, and headed for the canteen. 

"Avram!" I turned to see 'Grandfather' hurrying down the corridor, juggling datacards. 

"I wanted to see you, Avram. How would you feel about being transferred to the military?" 

-~-~-~-~ 

A few days later, I found myself in an Alliance star frigate, undergoing a medical exam. I was feeling both apprehensive and nostalgic; my chances of seeing Ari had just been reduced to practically nothing. I had written a note to him, and swallowed my pride to ask Suki to pass it on. She had been so kind that I had been ashamed. I was worried about my future as well—being stationed in a military base would be on the the front lines of this strange war. But surely it couldn't be that much more dangerous than my experiences on Ulasas and Thura? 

"Ensign Avram?" 

I took a second to respond to my rank. No one in the Coop bothered with such niceties. The medidroid had changed its vocoder to the female range, presumably to make me feel more comfortable standing half-naked in front of it. Stripped to my skivvies, I was shocked at how much weight I had lost in the past few months. 

"You are somewhat underweight, Ensign," the droid's opinion chimed with my own, as it churned around, analyzing blood samples. 

"However, you are suffering from no disease or injury, and your pysch profile is stable. I report you as fit for service." 

I redressed and went to pick up my kitbag from the locker where I had stowed it. I was headed for the military. 


	11. Echo Base

_Sixthmonth 1103_

Echo Base (Alliance Planetary Base #3), location Hoth VI, was quite the coldest place I had ever been in . Despite my new snowsuit, insulated boots and gloves, and padded jacket with its ensign's insignia, I still felt frozen. 

"This is where you'll be working," Captain Toryn Farr waved a hand around the command centre. "You've worked in communications before, haven't you?" 

"Yes—nothing as big as this, though." 

"You're bunking with Vega, I think. I'll let her look after you." 

She indicated a woman of perhaps a couple of years older than my own twenty. I placed her as Thuran, like Rix. 

"Hey, Vega—fresh blood. Vega Ha'kritt, Keitin Avram. Your shift's at 0800 tomorrow, Avram." 

Vega grinned up at me, pushing back her headset. Her chin-length hair was so fair it was almost white, but her eyes were brown. 

"This is where you'll slave for forty-two hours a week—listen to the blether, route messages to where they're supposed to be, patch in people's comlinks, mouth for officers who don't know what they want to say themselves. If you joined the Rebellion for the glamour, now is the time to quit." 

"Actually, I joined because my grandmother told me to," I said, sitting down beside her and examining the equipment. "Then the Death Star happened." 

"You're Alderaani, aren't you? I'm sorry." 

I shrugged. It was better to get that out of the way at the start. Vega explained her work to me, then said, "I'll see you when my shift's done—do you know where the messhall and the bunkrooms are?" 

I nodded, being pretty sure of my way. I had just left the command centre when a familiar voice cried my name. I turned to see a slender white figure with a coronet of dark plaits. 

"Princess Leia!" 

"I saw your name on the recruits list—I wasn't sure if it was you, but I hoped—" 

She broke off and flung her arms around me. I had forgotten how small she was—her crown of plaits barely reached my nose. 

"You're thinner, Your Highness." 

She pulled away from me, smiling. 

"So are you. And please call me Leia. We've known each other so long, it's silly to be formal. It'll be good to have a bit more female company about this place. All this testosterone..." 

We both laughed as Leia led the way down the corridor. 

"Have you eaten? I'm going to lunch now...I'm glad to see you again. How did you—you were off Alderaan?" 

I nodded. "I was on Coruscant with a faulty hyperdrive. Stars, but I was annoyed at the time...Ari Oharran made it, too—you remember him? He's in Supply, where I've been since then." 

We were crossing a hangar with speeders and snubfighters ranged along its walls. Mechanics, astrodroids and flight-suited pilots hurried to and fro. At one end, a group of bipedal, grey-furred saddle animals were corralled. They smelled terrible, even in the icy air. 

"Taun-tauns," the Princess explained. "We haven't enough speeders, and they keep breaking down with the cold. The animals are native...unfortunately they stink to high heaven..." 

She paused at an X-wing with its access panels open, a pilot and mechanic in consultation beside it. 

"...oh, I dunno. Try it again. Afternoon, Your Highness." 

"Hello, Wedge. Engine trouble?" 

"Yes—not getting enough power to the stabilisers." 

Leia turned to me. "This is Wedge Antilles, part of the aptly named Rogue Flight." 

"That's slander, Princess. You can't—" "Wes Janson," Leia said flatly. 

"Point," Wedge agreed. Another X-wing came powering in on its repulsorlifts, scattering droids and pilots from its path. 

"Heh, Tycho, I didn't know Luke wanted to kill you quite that much!" Wedge yelled to another orange-clad pilot. The landing X-wing settled on its struts. The pilot emerged, pulling off his helmet—a slim figure with a mop of untidy sandy blond hair. 

"We thought you were going to kill Tycho there," Wedge called up to him. 

"Well, if you will insist on scattering yourselves all over my parking space—" 

He dropped lightly to the ground, saw the Princess, and smiled broadly at her. Leia beamed back. 

"This is Luke Skywalker," she told me. My eyes widened. "Tycho Celchu—this is Keitin Avram, boys." 

"_The_ Luke Skywalker? I thought you would be—well, older." 

_Taller_ I had been going to say—he only topped me by two or three inches. But he was very young. I put him as barely my own age, though as I later discovered, he was the same age as Princess Leia. He laughed, his mouth crinkling up at the corners. 

"Better than being old and decrepit like Tycho." 

Tycho, who had fair hair and a vaguely familiar face, prodded him in the ribs. 

"Enough with the insults, squirt." 

He frowned at me, snapping his fingers. 

"Avram, Avram...Trade and Transport?" 

I nodded. 

"You're not one of Tad Avram's lot?" 

"I'm the family orphan. Was. Celchu—the Holonet operator?" 

"Yes. I remember you now, at some dinner or other. You were a skinny little thing with big eyes—come to think of it, you haven't changed much." 

"This is turning into a sort of school reunion," Wedge remarked. Leia and I exchanged glances. 

"Oh, it is," she said. "Luke, join us for lunch?" 

We all moved off, Wedge yelling after us, "Luke, Tych—skip the stew! It's Mystery Meat again!" 

"Ugh. What's the betting it's taun-taun?" Luke called back. "Thanks for the heads-up, Wedge." 

"Heard the latest, Your Highness?" Tycho asked. "The astrodroids are starting to freeze over on us." 

"But they're made for operation in a vacuum. How can the cold possibly be affecting them?" 

"I think it's the snow," Skywalker put in. "I spent an hour scraping it out of Artoo last week. Now Hobbie's droid has stopped spinning altogether. Of course, that could just be because it's Hobbie." 

We entered the messhall, collected our food and found a space. Tycho prodded his plate of non-descript mush as we sat down. 

"I don't know that this is much of an improvement on taun-taun, Luke. What a life! The cookdroids are slowly poisoning us—" 

"—the Imps are after us—" Luke put in. 

"—we're freezing our, um, toes off on this icecube—" Tycho continued. 

Luke, trying not to laugh, finished triumphantly, "—and I have Janson in my squadron! Could things get any worse?" 

A shadow fell across the table. 

"Oh, look, they just did," Leia muttered into her mush. I glanced up. A tall, brown-haired man, accompanied by an even taller furry sentient, whose species eluded me, had stopped by our table. The man reached over and tousled Skywalker's fair hair. 

"Chin up, kid—of course it could be worse. The Emperor could come calling and we only have taun-taun stew to feed him." 

We laughed, Leia looking like she was trying, and failing, not to. 

"Don't be silly, Han, of course it's not taun-taun," she reproved, though she had said nothing when Luke Skywalker had made the same suggestion earlier. 

"Oh, yeah? I'm Corellian—I know everything about fine cuisine, and I tell you, this ain't it." 

"Did you get lessons in arrogance on Corellia, as well?" she snapped back. The Corellian leaned his hands on the table, grinning crookedly. 

"Did they give _you_ sarcasm lessons in the Palace, Princess?" 

My jaw dropped. I had never heard anyone being so rude to Princess Leia before—I had never even considered it as a possibility. On the other side of the table, Tycho was grinning, and young Skywalker was contemplating the ceiling with a long-suffering expression. 

"I don't remember 'sarcasm' being an elective at school, Your Highness," I leapt to Leia's defence. 

"No, you're right," Leia said mock-sweetly. "But marksmanship was compulsory, so watch your back, Solo!" 

"Do I look scared?" 

"You ought to be—she's a better shot than either of us," Luke muttered. 

"Did I hear the sound of someone sticking his nose where it isn't wanted?" the Corellian asked. 

"The only thing that isn't wanted is a loud-mouthed nerf-herder like you," Leia snapped. 

"Oho, fine then. I'll be around when you _do_ want me," and he leaned across the table with an optimistic leer that left no doubt about his meaning, spun on his heel and left. His furry friend howled, threw up his long arms and hurried after him, still growling. 

"Oooh!" Leia jabbed her cutlery savagely into the remains of her lunch. 

"Is it safe to come above the table yet?" Tycho stage-whispered. Luke elbowed him in the ribs, shaking his head, but Leia ignored them both and turned to me. 

"_That_ was Han Solo, the most arrogant, swollen headed smuggler to _not_ join the Rebellion." 

"What species is his friend?" I asked peaceably. 

"Chewbacca's a Wookiee. He has Life-Debt to him—no one would want to put up with him, otherwise." 

"Leia," Luke said gently. He touched her sleeve. "I thought you two had made up?" 

"_You_ weren't here, you missed the latest," Princess Leia said wryly. 

"Must have raised the temperature to at least, oh, thirty degrees below freezing," Tycho put in. Leia snorted into her kaff. 

"Glad to be of service, Celchu." 

"Any hope of us moving to a planet that's actually warm all the time?" Skywalker asked wistfully. Leia smiled. 

"No, you little desert womp-rat, not this week. Anyway, you were cold on Hudsart and Sprix and Neolcu—at least here you have plenty of company." 

"Damn straight," Tycho agreed. Leia forked the last of her meal into her mouth, washing it down with kaff. She stood up. 

"Luke, Tycho—see you later." She put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad you made it, _m'lelka_. We'll talk again, 'kay?" 

I nodded, smiling up at her. _M'lelka_ was an Alderaanian term of address to a sister or a close female friend. Very few people had called me that before, and no woman. When had we become friends? The three years of war had changed us both, I supposed. 

"Can you not face that?" Tycho asked, making me jump. I looked down at my half-empty plate. 

"I've eaten worse. Not much worse, mind you." 

"It's not usually quite as bad as this, but supplies have been more constricted lately. The Empire's getting more careful." 

"They're getting worse," Luke said thoughtfully. "Leia and Han I mean, not the Imps. Oh well, I'd better get off to that briefing. See you later." 

I walked up to the living quarters with Tycho. Back at our bunkroom, I met Vega. We sat down on our bunks. It was marginally warmer than the corridor, meaning that we could sit still without freezing. 

"I saw you hobnobbing with the aristocracy in the messhall earlier—you don't really need me to mind you, do you? Did you know the Princess before? And Tycho Celchu?" 

"Not Tycho—I was at school with the Princess." 

She looked relieved; I grinned. 

"I'm not his long-lost teenage sweetheart if that's what's worrying you." 

She laughed, tossing back her short hair. 

"Let's not compete for Tycho—you can have any of the other pilots. However, don't go for Skywalker—he's very cute, but the word is he's saving himself for the Princess." 

"Like that, then? Number five hundred and thirty-seven on the list of Her Royal Highness Princess Leia Organa's admirers." 

"Oh, half the base is in love with her, of course," Vega said. "However, the gossip-mill generally agrees only Skywalker and Solo have a hope." 

"Solo? _Him?_ Tall, very rude, scruffy brown hair—?" 

"—hot as hell but insufferably arrogant? Yep, that's him. The two of them fight day in, day out, but anyone could see he's after her. The pilots have bets on which one she'll go for. Personally I think she's a fool if she goes for Solo, but you never know." 

I digested this information, feeling rather guilty about talking about Leia behind her back. 

"Give me Luke Skywalker any day," I said to change the subject, wrinkling my nose. "There's a lot to be said for the quiet ones—and he has lovely eyes." 

"Now, don't go becoming another one of the Skywalker fanclub. They get talked to politely, but no further acknowledgement is made. He's a sweet kid, but clueless, and he can break your heart without even knowing you exist. My last bunkmate but one was head over heels. Months I had to listen to her raving over him, night after night. She was pretty blatant about it too—even he noticed after she'd been flirting with him—or at him, rather—for weeks." 

"What happened?" 

"Oh, he snubbed her kindly but firmly, and she gave up. The poor boy was probably horribly embarrassed. Poor old Syryi!" 

I curled my knees under me. 

"I take _you_ are after Tycho?" I asked, and she nodded. 

"What about you, Keitin?" 

"I left him behind in Supply," I said, suddenly solemn. 

"Oh, you poor thing," Vega said, and hugged me, taking me by surprise. 

"It's okay, it was all pretty hopeless anyway," I said, wriggling away. I was not in the mood for any more chatter. 


	12. The Princess, the Scoundrel and the Hero

Despite the cold and the hardships, I liked Hoth. It took me a few days to get accustomed to all the people—it was three years since I had been part of more than a three-man team. I spent my working shifts in the command centre. I liked it, mainly because it was less cold than anywhere else. My time off was spent with Vega and her friends among the other workers in comm and the pilots, or with the Princess, in the rare moments when she wasn't working. How she managed to do so much is a mystery; she seemed to be everywhere at once, doing her own job of administration and command and anyone else's who needed replaced. I was part of her second rank of friends. The first rank was the most famous friendship on the base, known jokingly as 'the _Millennium Falcon_ team' ever since their arrival at Yavin IV with the Death Star schematics. However many other friends they might have, they always gravitated back together. I often saw the four heads clustered round a table in the messhall—Chewbacca's large, furry one, Han Solo's scruffy brown one, Luke Skywalker's sandy mop, Leia's smooth dark head with its crown of plaits. Without knowing it, they erected an invisible barrier around themselves. 

I tried not to be jealous of what they had, but I envied their camaraderie, the more so as I was missing Ari more than ever. I missed the way he could always make me smile, I missed his messy hair, I even missed the way he left breadcrumbs in the galley after breakfast. I envied Tycho and Vega their relationship. 

If I had been so inclined, I could probably have managed a love affair of my own. Hoth's personnel were significantly skewed towards the human, male potion of the population. I received more casual male attention in a few months than I had in all my previous years. But I was too unsure of myself, too raw after Ari, and missing him too much. 

I had long ago—even before I left school—divided men into three categories: Elderly, Non-human and Married—out of the running, Young and Desperate—beware clumsy advances, and Cynical Womaniser—keep at arm's length. There had been a fourth category, called simply 'Ari' that I had no idea what to do with. Princess Leia's three friends fell more or less into each of my three categories—at least, Chewbacca and Solo slotted neatly into Non-human and Cynical Womaniser, respectively. Luke Skywalker should have fit into Young and Desperate, but he did not quite. Young certainly, but not exactly desperate. He was different, somehow. Not just in his unlikely heroism. He had something about him of Leia's bright spirit, though without the resolute will that drove her. To my eyes, he was closer to Leia than Solo was. Not in any overtly romantic way, but they had an easy, friendly companionship, without any of the explosive arguments frequent between Leia and Han Solo. Their base-rocking fights provided much of the drama of my circle of acquaintance, the humour being provided by the Rogues, who, according to Vega, had the highest proportion of both handsome pilots and strange personalities in the Alliance. 

A typical evening in Echo Base was something like this. Myself, Vega, and a couple of the other communications officers had joined the Rogues in one of the few places in the base that ever rose above freezing, a lounge next to the power generators. A desultory sabacc game was going on, and some mildly intoxicating drinks were circulating. Wedge and Dack came in, a little late. 

"Fireworks down by the South entrance," Wedge announced. "Solo and the Princess are at it again." 

"What, again?" Tycho said incredulously. 

"Ha! I win! Pay up, Janson!" Hobbie whooped. Samoc Farr, who had been chatting with her sister Toryn in a corner, leaned over to Wedge. 

"What rating?" 

"Um...six, I think," Dack said. 

"Maybe a six-and-a-half," Wedge corrected. 

"That bad?" Tycho said, wincing dramatically. 

"Is this on a scale of one to ten?" I asked. 

"Yeah, but we're saving ten for if they actually kill each other. I don't think there's ever been a nine, either." 

"I saw an eight once," Wes said. "It put years on me." 

"That's impossible," Tycho goaded. 

"Hey," Wedge exclaimed, "think if we exposed Wes to long bouts of Han and the Princess fighting, we could bring him up to a mental age of thirteen or so?" 

"Nah," Tycho, Samoc and Hobbie chorused. Janson spluttered indignantly. 

"Shht!" Vega warned as Luke Skywalker appeared in the doorway. Wes broke the momentary silence by announcing dramatically, "Silence falls as the young Rebel hero enters the—ow!" 

He broke off as the young Rebel hero clouted him round the back of the head and leaned over him to peer into the sabacc pot. 

"Ration bars?" 

"We're playing to lose," Hobbie assured him. "Want dealt in?" 

"Surely there's an easier way to get rid of them, like feed them to a taun-taun or something?" 

"Probably poison the brutes," Hobbie said mournfully, shaking his head. Luke's eyes widened, and he exclaimed, "Hobbie, you're a genius! No more taun-taun patrols!" 

And thus hilarity was restored. 

_Seventhmonth 1103_

Of course, Hoth wasn't all hilarity. We seemed to have a chronic shortage of rations and equipment. In the last month, our staple diet was tuberroot, in a variety of forms. We were permanently cold. And then there was Alderaan Remembrance Day. Ari and myself had never noted the anniversary particularly, for neither of us was the sort of person to whom dates were important. The Alliance marked the day with mourning, as I found out. One afternoon I stuck my head round the door of the ready room to find Tycho ranting to Wedge and Luke. 

"Luke, General Rieekan's after those reports—just giving you a heads-up," I announced. 

"Hell, no," Wedge yelped. "Luke—" 

"—I mean, what do they expect?" Tycho was pronouncing. Luke's fair head was bent over what looked to be the duty roster; he had his hands over his ears. 

"Uh-huh...well, what am I meant to do about it?" 

"Do the reports?" I suggested patiently. 

"Not you, I meant Tycho...Farr, Ralter, Skywalker..." 

"You're her best friend," Tycho said. 

"...Antilles, Farr...oh blast, that's Sam twice...and you think that means I can stop her from doing something she feels is her duty? Thanks, Keitin. Wedge, shut up, I'm trying to do three things at once already." 

"What do you think about it?" Tycho asked me. 

"What, Luke's inability to produce a report on time? Tycho, I don't have the first clue what you're talking about." 

"Oh, yeah—Alderaan Remembrance Day. Basically we all gather round and the Princess and a few other people make speeches and we have a minute's silence and are very gloomy generally." 

He sat down on the table in the midst of the duty roster. Luke groaned. 

"And Tych's trying to make me make her _not_ to," he said. 

"Well, that's pointless enough," I said, sitting on the part of the table Tycho wasn't occupying. "I mean, it's Leia." 

"Don't tell me, I know. Here, Wedge, finish that, will you?" He held out the duty roster. Wedge protested. 

"I'm delegating," Luke said cheerfully. "And if you give me anything too horrible I'll put ice in your bunk." 

"I just don't think it's fair that she has to do it," Tycho persisted. 

"Nope," Luke agreed, "it isn't. It's not that I don't care, because I do, but like Keitin said, it's Leia. There's not really a lot I can do about it." 

"You'd think seeing it first-hand would be enough," Tycho said in disgust. 

"Did she? I didn't know that," I said, shivering. 

"I was calling my family when it happened," Tycho told me. "I thought it was just the Holonet connection going down, but...I couldn't stay fighting for the Imps after that, so I went awol." 

I thought of home. Shamma would have been dead by now, even without the Empire, but I could not comprehend that my familiar childhood haunts were gone. I felt as though Alderaan must still be in existence somewhere, even if I could no longer reach it. 

"Were you ever at the lake beyond Lisga?" I asked Tycho. "Do you remember the way the fish used to lie beneath the bank? We went up there when we children, my cousin Dan and I, and saw the sun rising over Tol Bedhrin. Ah, stang—" 

"Don't cry, your eyelashes will freeze over," Tycho exclaimed, giving me a hug. I laughed at that, shakily. 

"Who's crying?" 

-~-~-~-~- 

As it turned out, Leia was gone on Alderaan Remembrance Day, on a mission to Ord Mantell. I couldn't blame her for escaping. I wished I could do the same. 

General Rieekan took her place in leading the speeches. The ceremony took place in one of the hangars, squashed between snubfighters and transports. 

"Are you okay?" Vega asked as we filed in. I nodded hard, because my throat felt too closed up to speak. Vega took my hand, holding so tightly that it was painful. Her mouth was set in a straight line. I dropped my eyes to the snowy floor as the ceremony began. I let the speeches wash over me, not hearing, subsumed in a numb, aching misery that was surprisingly non-specific. Memories of Shama and Dan and Ari and Leia floated disjointedly through my head. How Vega's death grip on my hand pinched...During the silence, I thought for a moment I would faint, because I was feeling so disconnected from reality. I tried to think of Alderaan, but all that came to mind was how cold, how _cold_ it was in the hangar. 

And then it was over, everyone surging out of the hangar with respect overcoming relief at being able to move again, locking us all in silence. Tycho, I saw, was crying unashamedly, just a couple of silent tears running down his cheeks. I reached up to touch my own face, but it was dry. 

"That wasn't as bad as I expected, actually," I announced to Vega, and almost believed it. 

-~-~-~- 

A couple of days later, Vega breezed into our bunkroom to announce, "Your Princess is back-she and Solo yelled at each other and stormed off in opposite directions, and young Skywalker's sitting down in the ready room twitching visibly and swearing never to go on another mission with the pair of them. Wes is cheering him up." 

"Poor thing," I said. "Being cheered up by Wes Janson is not for the faint-hearted, and you need to be quite cheerful to start with." 

It wasn't quite as bad as Vega's exaggeration. Leia and Solo had had yet another yelling match, but Luke was looking perfectly untwitchy when I saw him, merely thoughtful. 

"They're mad," he said to Wedge as they ate in the canteen, I eavesdropping at the next table with Toryn. 

"We could lock them up and tell them to get on with it," Wes suggested cheerfully. Wedge gave him a look that would have blistered paint, but Luke only said, "I don't think that's very practical." 

"Must be love," Toryn said to me, as we went to work. I snorted. 


	13. On the Road Again

_Ninthmonth 1103_

The end, when it came, was abrupt, if not wholly unexpected. One morning I arrived in the command centre to find it full. It was not unusual for all sorts of people with no business there to be hanging about, but this was extreme. 

"What's happened?" I asked Bracco, one of the older controllers. 

"Skywalker and Solo didn't come off patrol last night," he told me briefly. 

"Oh, no..." My hands went to my mouth. I thought instantly of the princess, and I glanced around for her. She was sitting at a console, her whole being focused on the news relayed through her headset. I elbowed my way through the crowd, and laid a cautious hand on her shoulder, but I don't think she even knew I was there. There was no hope of my hearing the pilots' reports first-hand-every headset was in use-but when the room erupted into cheers I knew the two friends were found. Leia didn't stop to join in the celebrations; she wriggled past me, her face as white as if she had received bad news, not good. 

Rieekan chased off all the extra bodies, and we started work, rather unsettled because of all the excitement. I missed the actual alarm, which happened later, after I had gone off shift. I learned later that Luke had seen the Imperial probe droid make its landfall before he had been injured. Hoth's indigenous and unfriendly wildlife had cost us a day's warning. 

At the time, of course, we knew none of this. I was in our relatively warm lounge with Toryn Farr, who was mending her gloves. Suddenly, a siren note sounded over the intercom, followed by the announcement, "Attention all personnel. Attention all personnel. Hostile activity has been discovered insystem. Evacuation to commence immediately. This is a Code Purple alert, repeat Code Purple. All command staff to report in. Support staff report to evacuation stations at 0400 hours." 

Toryn flung down her gloves. "Well, screw this for a game of soldiers," she remarked. "Let's hope they leave the damn tuberroot behind when we're going." 

"Aren't we, I mean, don't we need to leave?" I asked. 

"It's Code Purple," Toryn explained, "which fits between 'We've been here too long, better leave before the Imps catch up with us', and 'Oh kreth oh kreth that's a Star Destroyer, we're dead!'. Of course, it could always upgrade to Code Red later. Come on, better get to Command-" 

As the luck of the draw had it, I was to evacuate on one of the earlier transports. Vega and Toryn were part of the group who were to remain to the last minute. I spent the night working-the pilots and troopers slept, if they could, but the command centre was more active than I had seen it yet. I met Vega on her way in, as the evacuation started. She hugged me, but said nothing. Down in the hangars, the place was even more frenetic. Figures ran in every direction-technicians, pilots, soldiers. Farther along, Solo and the Wookiee were still mechanicking away at the _Millennium Falcon_. How the man could work on the ship with all the panic going around him, I couldn't fathom, but I knew he would never leave her behind. I missed _Swift_, abruptly. 

The first transport was lifting on its repulsors like some great unwieldy insect taking flight. People were running to their transports, the quartermaster hopping in frustration as they disrupted his loading process. From the snatches of talk I heard the words, 'Imperials', 'Star Destroyers' and 'Sector Four'. So they had found us then. My fingers itched for _Swift_'s controls, for the sure bound of power beneath my hands. I joined the mass of people crowding into my transport, kitbag on my shoulder, pausing to cheer when the intercom announced, "The first transport is away!" 

I took my last look at Echo Base over my shoulder. Outside, the sun was glittering on the snowfields. I steadied myself as the transport's sublight drive kicked in. I was more frightened than I had ever been in my life. If I had been at _Swift_'s controls I would have been panicking less, but trapped in the belly of the transport I was blind and helpless. I made to chew at my thumbnail, my old nervous habit, and bit down on the insuflex glove I had forgotten I was wearing. 

"Brace-" the intercom crackled urgently. I wedged myself against the wall. A convulsive shudder ran through the transport as its shields deflected the Star Destroyer's blast. My feet slipped, and I banged my hip against the wall hard enough to bruise, even through my many layers of insulating clothing. I struggled to catch my breath, heard the ship creaking in agony around me. Then we levelled out, reaching the safety of hyperspace. I slid to the floor, my legs refusing to hold me up any longer. 

-~-~-~-~- 

The journey seemed to go on forever, as we reached the interstellar rendezdevous, then made intermediary jumps to avoid being trapped. I sat crouched in the hold, tense and sick, unable to eat or sleep. 

The temporary base on Magne Minor was like something seen in a nightmare. When our transport arrived, the place was already frantic. More and more transports and fighters kept limping in, each with its cargo of wounded and dying Rebels. I helped propel dozens of repulsorlift stretchers through the crowded corridors, carried forms for which there were no more stretchers. I was bending to set one down when black spots swam in front of my eyes, and I swayed giddily. One of the orderlies seized my elbows. 

"Are you okay? Not hurt? Did you get hit on the head? No? Here, sit down, put your head between your knees." 

"I'm all right, just dizzy." 

"When did you last have anything to eat?" 

"Yesterday, I think." 

"Ach, go on with you-go and eat, you're no use to us passing out." 

I went up to the hangars, slowly, because I had no idea where to find food. Again and again I had to flatten myself to the wall as people rushed by in the other direction. It reminded me of the Alderaanian Embassy on the terrible night-the same haunted expressions, eyes scanning the crowds with mingled hope and fear, the grateful and joyous reunions. Another transport was in, the grim and bloodied survivors straggling by. Amid the confusion I saw a white-blonde head. 

"_VEGA!_" I shrieked. I heard an answering cry, and my friend came plunging through the group and into my arms. 

"Keitin, little Keitin..." She was shaking, grime and sweat streaking her pretty face. "Have you seen Tycho?" 

"No, but the X-wings are further down. If he was just in I wouldn't have." 

The snubfighters were in even worse shape than the transports, covered in carbon scoring, damaged by direct hits. The only two of the Rogues to be seen were Wedge, sitting on the nose of his X-wing, and Janson, uncharacteristically silent, leaning on a strut. 

"I'm pretty sure Tych got off," Wedge called out as soon as he saw Vega. "He's not here yet though." 

"We lost Zev and Samoc and Luke and Hobbie took a hit-" Janson said. 

"No, Luke got out-I saw him take off. Don't think Dack made it though." 

"Temporarily mislaid Luke, then. Five out of a dozen-" He swore in several languages. Vega sat down cross-legged on the rock floor and began to cry. I could almost have done the same. 

Tycho arrived not long after that. Vega leapt up and was passionately kissing him the instant he got his helmet off. Wes gave a half-hearted cheer and muttered, "Get a room!" 

Tycho, still with Vega's stranglehold around his neck, came over to hug me and slap Wedge and Janson on the back. 

"What a mess!" he said finally. 

"Tell me about it," Vega whispered. "The roof was falling in and we could hear them coming closer and closer-" 

She shuddered, though the hangar was warm. I had forgotten what warm felt like. The hangar was a rock-hewn cave with heat as well as light streaming through the entrance. The sky outside was blue, and somewhere far below I thought I heard surf breaking on rocks. It all felt reassuringly real. I was sweating beneath my padded jumpsuit. Everywhere in this temporary base were badly-landed starcraft, Rebels asleep where they sat. It would have been morning, Hoth time. The five of us set off on a search for food. "There's tragedy now," Wes said when he heard the tuberroot had been abandoned, his natural personality beginning to reassert itself. 

The list of dead and missing personnel had been posted, and was constantly updated. Among the 'missing' were L.A. Skywalker (Cmdr), H. Solo, Chewbacca and Princess Leia Organa (Gen). I swiped ineffectually at the tears I was too tired to suppress, pulling off my gloves to rub my knuckles in my eyes. The boys looked as if they would have liked to do the same. 

"She turned up once before, don't give up yet," Tycho said huskily. 

Vega's touch on my elbow made me start violently. "I've found somewhere to bed down. Come on, dear." 

I shook my head, muffling a sob against my hand. I felt brittle, as though I would shatter into fragments at any moment. I was going to break down and cry in the middle of a hangar, and quite possibly scream, and I didn't even care. 

"Keiti, listen—_listen to me_. The Princess got out, Solo pulled her out of the command centre just before we all ran." 

"Truly?" I asked. 

"Course!" Vega said, giving my arm a squeeze. "Come and sleep." 

Toryn Farr was guarding a corner filled with packaging wrap. We dropped into it with groans of exhaustion. Tycho and Vega curled up into a united heap of limbs, whispering inaudibly to each other. 

"Keitin," Tycho said suddenly and out loud, "here," and he threw an engine wipe at my head. 

"Thanks," I said into it, sniffling. "I'm sorry, but I just can't help it." 

"Don't be." 

Vega's head popped up over Tycho's arm. "The Princess is okay, just wait. The Force favours her." 

I sat up sharply. "_Favours_ her? Have you any _idea_...!? What she's been through...I'd rather be dead like everyone else! I wish I was dead!" 

I dived back into the wipe again. Tycho shifted Vega and reached out with his other hand. 

"No you don't. And _I_ do have an idea. C'mere." 

I settled back against Tycho, and he patted me on the head. 

"_What_ is that in your hair? No, I don't want to know, actually." 

"Go to sleep, both of you, and let's hope nobody treads on us," Vega said. 

"Murmmrrpphle," Wedge agreed, from somewhere beyond Vega. 

-~-~-~- 

"No," I mumbled, "Canna be time to get up..." 

"Up, you lot! We've got work to do!" a strident voice penetrated my consciousness. 

I groaned again in protest as my brain processed what had happened over the past couple of days. I was lying face down with my nose pressed against the floor, very uncomfortably. 

"I need a shower," I grumbled reflexively as I sat up. Toryn, who was the source of the strident voice, grinned wearily at me. 

"You'll have to build them first, Avram. We've got to get comms set up, some sort of network organised. We need your clever hands." 

"My hands," I said, holding them out, "lost all functioning power somewhere back on Hoth." 

"Look on the bright side," Toryn said mock-cheerfully. "Here, you can take your gloves off." 

-~-~-~-~- 

Shifts melded endlessly together, day and night slipping by without being properly marked. I went from my cot to welding together our makeshift command centre and back again. After Hoth, the heat was overwhelming. I took the first opportunity to strip off my snowsuit and into a pair of coveralls, though even they weren't quite cool enough. I think it was some time on the second day since our arrival when I bumped into Wedge, standing in the middle of the corridor turning a piece of flimsiplast over and over in his hands. 

"What's the matter, Wedge?" 

"My orders as commander of Rogue Squadron." He held out the flimsi, looking absurdly young and lost. 

"Oh Wedge." Spontaneously, I flung my arms around him. Thinking of Luke instantly brought thoughts of Leia. 

"The _Falcon_ not back yet either?" I said into Wedge's flightsuit. 

"No. If I thought Luke was with them—I bet something vital has dropped off and they're stuck in the Outer Rim somewhere." 

"I bet it has a beach," Wes said from somewhere behind Wedge. "And lots of nubile young women. Solo's that kind of lucky sod." 

"We have a beach too," I pointed out. "Just not a lot else. Is there any hope of any more food today?" 

Wedge shoved the official orders in his pocket. _Grieve later, keep fighting, don't look back,_ I thought. _I'm so sick of running. But I won't cry for Leia. She's alive. She has to be alive._

_Twelfthmonth 1103_

Magne Minor base was rather like a very peculiar holiday camp; the sun, the ocean outside, the people bedded down in odd corners-we twice outnumbered the bunk space-the lack of any organised missions, the weird and irregular meals. The days passed, the last of the survivors trickled in. The _Falcon_ didn't turn up, but Tycho, myself and the other Alderaani kept hoping grimly against hope. After a week or so, we stopped talking about it. We spent perhaps two weeks more there before the order came to move, much to the disappointment of Wes, who had been working on a suntan. We ended up, to my surprise, not on a new planetary base, but in Alliance Base Deep Space #1. This was a little fleet of starcraft, stationed somewhere far out in the Rim. The High Command was based here. The advantage of such a system was, of course, that the ships could take to hyperspace at the first threat. 

The communications room on the frigate was not Hoth's command centre. We never saw the High Command, and even middle-ranking generals like Rieekan hung around less than on Hoth. Of course that could have been due to the ship's uniform life support. When all the base was well above freezing there was no tendency to congregate in the warmer—well, less cold—spots. Our work was more purely administrative now, routing and decoding messages, keeping the base's IntramessageNet up and running. I didn't stay there that long anyway. One morning a red-haired , youngish man walked into the comm room, and said, "Commander Farr, have you got an Ensign Avram on this shift, Keitin Avram?" 

I was propping the doorframe, in my default 'off duty but hanging around' mode, and waved a hand at him. "Here, sir." 

He rustled among the pile of flimsiplast he was clutching to his chest. "You have a Technical Diploma in electronics from the University of Aldera, yes?" 

I nodded. "Yessir." 

"And they're wasting you in a headset! I'm so short of engineers I'm pulling in fifteen-year-old slicers! Honestly, the lack of organisation in this set-up!" 

"I was seventeen when I got the diploma," I pointed out. "Barely. And I've been in the Alliance since then. If they'd wanted student engineers, they should have pulled me into the corps last year instead of posting me to Hoth." 

I gave a glance at Vega's blonde head at her console; she was sneaking glances at me. 

"Will I be posted somewhere else? Again?" 

"What? Oh, no, I need you here! Stars! Now, you did two years in school, yes? Then you were in Supply; I suppose you're as rusty as our blasted equipment?" 

"I kept my own ship up and running; a Corellian Twelve-Series Omega staryacht. But she didn't need much maintenance. There have to be people better qualified than me. People who did actually graduate. I never even did a proper apprenticeship, you know." 

He looked bleak. "We've lost so many. You're a prize compared with most of what I'm struggling with. Give you a year under me, and you'll have the equivalent of a CorTech degree that you'll be able to boast about, if you ever get out of this. It seems ridiculous to offer those sorts of incentives, in the situation, but I suppose we have to keep on believing we can win." 

"We are going to win," I protested, but weakly. My companion groaned. 

"You're going to be one of those enthusiastic subordinates," he said. "The grad student mentality. I miss that. If you agree of course. You would be working in design, trying to improve our systems, but it'll involve a lot of constructing, as well as maintenance and troubleshooting, too. It'll mean a promotion to sub-lieutenant as well. Oh, I'm Alun Quinn, by the way, ex-CorTech professor of electronics, and they made me a captain so that I can organise everyone, the nerfherders." 

"Well, I could see that much," I retorted, glancing pointedly at his rank insignia. With other ranking officers that would have been chancing it, but Alun Quinn merely grinned. 

"I'm going to like you, Sub-Lieutenant." 

And that was how I became an Alliance engineer. I had already, on Hoth, been the controller whom Toryn ordered, 'fix this so we won't have to wait an hour on the techs'; now I _was_ one of the techs. My social circle expanded to what was, for me, alarming proportions, and I was liable to be hauled out of bed at any hour of day or night, unlike the rigid shifts of the comm controllers. I quickly learned to see my three off-call shifts a week as sacred. I was sure Shama would have approved, though. "Work hard and earn this," she seemed to say in my head, "and though you're doing it for the Alliance, it's to your advantage too." 

I missed her dreadfully. 


	14. Planning a Rescue

Sometimes, in the windowless bunkroom I shared with Vega, I longed for a world beneath my feet. The brief glimpse, on Magne, of sun and fresh air and the taste of salt on my lips had awakened all my memories of Alderaan. And Leia and her friends had still not returned. 

I was sitting in the workshop one lazy afternoon, helping Alun reverse-engineer some captured Imperial hardware, when Voran, one of the boys-probably one of Alun's postgrads in a better universe-wandered in. 

"The _Falcon_'s back," he said. "Just saw her come in." He dumped the kaffs he had been to fetch on our workbench. 

"I didn't know the snubfighter hangars were on the way to the canteen," Quinn said acidly. "Pass me that multimeter, Avram." 

I grinned, hugging myself, happiness bubbling up and spilling uncontrollably onto my face. _I might have known they would turn up all right_, I thought. 

"You look happy," Alun said. "In love with Solo or something?" 

"No!" I said, half-laughing. 

"The princess, maybe?" Voran said with a smirk. "So that's why I've been getting nowhere with you, Keitin." 

I giggled. "If that's what it takes to salve your ego, Vor..." 

Alun rolled his eyes. "Fascinating as Lieutenant Avram's love life is, can we _try_ to get this finished before 0400, please?" 

As my shift was dismissed I met Vega coming on to hers, eager to tell me all the news. The _Falcon_'s return was the talk of the frigate. They had Luke Skywalker with them, a casualty-lost a hand, the whispers said-and a stranger, a brown-skinned man 'with absolutely impeccable trousers, my dear.' Han Solo had not come back. 

I went to the medcentre. I knew the way, having visited Samoc Farr there when we had first arrived. It is amazing where you can get in to by walking confidently and looking official. None of the orderlies or medidroids challenged me. Following my hunch, I went to the VIP corridor, the one with the rooms alongside the viewports, and found them there. 

Leia was sitting beside the bed; Luke was unconscious, but she was holding his hand so tightly their knuckles were white. Her face was pale and set. I knelt in front of her, taking her free hand in both of mine. I dropped my face against her knee, and she hugged me in an awkward one-armed clasp. 

"Leia!" 

"Oh, Keitin," she said, softly. I felt very fond of her, and—this was something new—a great pity for her. I had never seen her cry, but I thought that now she was close to it. 

"What happened?" I whispered at last, after a long silence. 

"Vader," she spat. I shuddered. I had seen Vader once, on Alderaan, when I had been small and Shamma had taken us with her on a visit to the Palace. Iruben had screamed, and Dan had made the superstitious sign the country people made to fend off evil, and pulled me and Iruben away. I had not been frightened until I saw the mask face-on. Even though his eyes were hidden, it felt as though he were looking through me. 

"He nearly killed Luke," Leia said. I jumped; the silence had been stretching between us, and I hadn't expected her to speak again. 

"And he froze Han in carbonite and gave him to the bounty hunter like he was a package of fish." 

She leaned her forehead on her hand, elbow on her knee. I clasped my hands across her lap. Leia had loved Han Solo, and now she had lost him-I could read that in her face. Painful empathy burned in my throat and eyes. I knew. I wanted to say something to comfort her, but there were no words to say it. So I hugged her knees in silence, resting my head against her chair. We stayed like that for a long time. My thoughts spiraled into vague reveries. 

Some small noise roused me, and I sat up, startled. 

"You were asleep," Leia said tiredly. I rubbed my face where the edge of the chair had printed its mark across my cheek. On the bed, Luke stirred and moaned. Leia bent over him, soothing, "Shht," the way Shamma used to do when I was small and had a fever. 

"Leia...it hurts, Leia," he whispered. "Can't you...make it stop...just for a little?" 

"I would if I could, Luke," she replied softly, smoothing his hair. "Keitin, could you fetch me a glass of water?" 

I scrambled up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. There was a tumbler by the spigot. I filled it, splashing water on my face when I was there. 

"Thank you," Leia said as I handed it to her, still in the tired voice. She held it while Luke drank. His face was flushed, his eyes too bright. I knew next to nothing about medicine, but surely that was a bad sign? I wondered suddenly what it would do to Leia if he died. I stood watching through a haze of drowsiness, hands behind me-the sorrowful weary-eyed girl, and he, his face looking almost translucent, an angel's face, if there were masculine versions of those semi-legendary inhabitants of Iego's moons. It came to me that I had never seen anyone die in their bed. 

I shook myself properly awake, thinking that I was getting very morbid. The room had been half-lit, but it was brightening, as though with sunrise. But we were not orbiting a sun...I turned to the viewport. The Medical Frigate must have been making routine manoeuvres, because a galactic panorama had swung into view. I gazed out at a million stars, drinking in a spectacle I had only seen fragments of so far. Leia gave a soft, "Oooh," behind me. When I looked at her again, her face was determined. 

"Han's out there," she said. "And I'll find him if I have to do it myself!" 

Luke's eyes didn't open, but he murmured, "Isn't that what I'm here for?", and some of the tension went out of Leia's face. 

-~-~-~-~ 

Even while Luke was still in the medcentre, he, Leia and the others were planning Han's rescue. I projected my feelings for Ari onto Leia, and after that would have done anything to give Solo back to her. I couldn't contribute to the rescue operation, but 'Start from where you are,' had been one of Shamma's dicta, so I helped Leia in any way I could. I spent all my off-duty in the medcentre, apart from when I was asleep, fetched and carried when she didn't want to leave Luke alone, and generally hovered around offering silent emotional support. I longed to give it verbally, but I was too diffident to offer it, and Leia, I supposed, too withdrawn to receive it. She was very quiet and dazed-seeming; her usual method of dealing with trauma—a smart mouth and a short fuse—was quite absent. It worried me. 

Luke gave Leia a bad couple of days, too. The second night they were on the Medical Frigate, I entered the room with a tray of food to find Leia kneeling at the bed. 

"Luke, please," she whispered to his unconscious form. "Luke, please try. Not you, too..." 

I backed out silently and came in again with an unnecessary amount of clatter. Leia had been sending me for food and datacards on carbon freezing and the galactic underworld. I tried coaxing her into sleeping, without noticeable success. Apart from Chewbacca, I am sure I was the most persistent visitor, though I was far from the only one. Once Luke was conscious again, everyone from the mechanics to the High Command came calling. The Rogues were so noisy that Leia turned them out of the room in a fit of exasperation. But Wes and Hobbie's comedy double act made her grin unwillingly. 

One morning a droid challenged me for the first time, "Are you authorised to enter? State your name, rank and number, please." 

"Keitin, is that you? I authorise her-come on ahead." 

The reason for the precaution, Mon Mothma, the elected leader of the Rebel Alliance, was sitting in Leia's usual seat. I nearly dropped the datacards I was holding. 

"Ma'am," I said, and sidled to the other side of Luke's bed. He didn't look any more at ease than I felt. Mothma continued to ask him about his treatment for a few minutes, then took her leave, saying, "Best wishes for your recovery, Commander." 

"Thank you," Luke said, smiling tightly. When the door closed behind her, he threw his head back against his pillows, sighing. 

"She's curious about that two-month hole in your debriefing, Leia." 

"Don't be so ungracious-it was very good of her to come and see you again. Is that the research paper I asked for-thanks, Keitin." 

"Dubret and Kowwald on carbon freezing," I said. Some of the possible side-effects made me shudder, and I wished Leia didn't have to know about them, but lying to someone even to protect them went against my grain. Besides, lying to Leia for any reason was unwise. So I relinquished the datacards. 

"Mothma's more bothered about you-_you're_ her pet," Luke said. Leia snorted. 

"The High Command are just worried about where the hero of Yavin-" Luke's voice was bitter-"disappeared to, hoping it wasn't Imperial reconditioning, and wondering about his sanity. I could tell them the truth-they wouldn't bother with a psych test, just shut me up straight off." 

"_Luke_," Leia groaned, her head bent over her datapad. "If I can be evaluated as psychologically sound, I'm sure you can. Stop being so cynical; it doesn't suit you." 

I shifted feet uncomfortably. This was the nearest approach to a quarrel I had ever seen the two of them reach, and for some reason it seemed more serious than Solo and Leia in a full yelling match. I tapped one foot on the floor, reminding them that there was a third person in the room, and Leia rolled her eyes at me. 

"I wouldn't be so sure," Luke said, so softly that I don't think Leia heard him. 

-~-~-~-


	15. Life Day

_Firstmonth 1104_

A/N: Han and Leia's game is borrowed from Ivylore's wonderful _Renewal_. 

Once Luke was out of the medcentre-and flying, too, as soon as possible-Leia became a little more at ease. Her single-minded attention was now concentrated on rescuing Han Solo from whatever unsavoury den he was being held in. By contrast, the rest of the base became more cheerful as the holiday of Life Day approached. The routine went on as normal-rations and long shifts and the squadrons doing patrol, right up until Life Day Eve. 

I came off shift that day, and had gone down to the fighter hangars to look for Vega. To my surprise, I found Tycho alone. 

"Hi, Tycho! Where's Vega?" 

"She's probably up in your room dolling herself up for the party." 

"What party? Nobody tells me anything," I grumbled reflexively. 

"Hey, I thought you knew. Well, on behalf of the squadron, I invite you to the Rogues' Life Day party. 2000 hours in Hangar Four. We're decorating it as I speak." 

"Where did you get Life Day decorations on a starship?" 

"Come and see," Tycho invited me. Hangar Four, the Rogues' own, was hiving with activity. Wedge was perched on an access ladder directing operations, Wes and Hobbie were tying coloured streamers onto the S-foils of the X-wings. A couple of technicians were pulling crates into a platform in one corner. There was a heap of green on the floor, which on inspection turned out to be flimsiplast packing. Three astromechs were slicing it with their circular cutting tools, and snipping and crimping it into an imitation of foliage. 

"This is amazing," I said. 

"We are Rogue Flight-amazing is our middle name!" Wes proclaimed from the nose of Tycho's X-wing. 

"Except for Wedge-his middle name is-" Hobbie began, but was hastily interrupted by Wedge, yelling "Left, Klivian, left! That's as lopsided as a drunken nerf!" 

Samoc Farr was overseeing the droids' artistic attempts, her cap of close-cropped red hair bent over the flimsiplast. I admired her courage, to go on flying after being shot down on Hoth. Bacta could heal the outer scars, but I knew the psyche was less easily repaired. 

"Hey," she greeted me, waving a 'leaf' in my direction. "I suppose my sister and all your gang are coming down?" 

"I don't know, I only heard about this a minute ago. I've been busy." 

"Really? I thought the whole ship must have known, the amount of chatter there's been. Hopefully we'll have enough room-we've opened the entry to Hangar Three for the overflow. The band will be there-" she pointed to the platform of crates-"the sitters-out along that wall and the refreshments in the maintenance store. Mostly non-alcoholic-the hooch got left behind on Hoth." 

"That would be the hooch I don't know about, so I can't report it, which I actually think is speeder fuel," a muffled voice said. I turned. The end X-wing was Luke Skywalker's, and he was standing halfway up the ladder, head and shoulders inside its lower access panel, affording a good view of his rear and his bootheels. 

"It's all academic now we lost the stuff, Luke," Samoc said. "When I think of Vader and his troopers swigging our hooch...hey, reckon he drinks through a straw?" 

She giggled. But she hadn't been looking in Luke's direction, and I had. He had gone instantly still at the mention of Vader. I nudged Samoc's arm, pointing my chin at Luke, and she mimed an exaggerated wince and slapped her forehead. There was an awkward silence, broken by Luke saying, "Artoo, can you get me a flux damper-see if this works?" 

His blue astrodroid, busy shredding flimsiplast, bleeped rudely. 

"Artoo-oo," Luke said reproachfully, pulling his head out of the innards of his X-wing and twisting round to look at the little droid. Samoc grinned cheekily. 

"Aw, boss-we were enjoying the view!" 

He flushed. "If you hadn't kidnapped my droid-" 

I was sure I must have been blushing as well-to make matters worse, at that moment Wedge sang out, "Sa-moc! More green stuff!" 

Samoc gathered up a double handful and ran off, leaving me with my feet locked to the floor with embarrassment. Luke muttered, "Oh, forget it, Artoo-" and raised a hand. Something tugged the corner of my attention, and I turned my head. The part had just flown from the open toolbox to his hand, in direct opposition to the ship's artificial grav field. My jaw dropped. I stared from Luke to the box and back again. He'd dived back into the access panel, and now turned a wry face to me. 

"Nothing-zip, zero, nil." 

"_Unadh_," I supplied automatically. He sat down on a rung of the ladder and grinned at me. His fair hair was very rumpled, he had a smudge of engine lube across his nose-and he had just moved something without touching it. I had of course heard of his rumoured Jedi powers, but an actual demonstration of them was a shock. He, however, was thinking of something totally different. 

"It reminds me of that game Han and Leia play, when they see who-" he paused, and trailed off, "...can swear in the most languages." 

Han Solo, I remembered, was his best friend as well as Leia's lover. 

"I'm sorry I startled you," he said, swinging the flux damper between two fingers. "I tend to forget-" 

"It's ok," I said, a disturbing thought striking me. "Can you do other Jedi stuff too? Can you-can you read my mind?" 

"Oh." He shrugged. "Not what you mean-I can tell what you're feeling, if I'm paying attention-images maybe, if you're concentrating strongly on something. But not to say, "Oh, she's thinking, 'Rogue Squadron haven't got their reports in yet'-just that you were peeved about something." 

"Can you tell what I'm feeling now?" 

_Let's hope whatever he was doing to the X-wing's guts was interesting... _

"At this moment? Nosy." 

I laughed, and changed the subject. "Did you know there's some sort of lifeform stuck to the underside of your X-wing's nose?" 

He craned his neck. "So there is. Wonder how it got there? C'mere, little fella-" 

He used the telekinesis thing again to pull the little star-shaped creeper from the hull, and dropped it to the deck. I made a stamp at it, but it avoided my boot and scuttled away under a crate. 

"We'll have a plague of them now. I must say, that Jedi thing would come in handy for taking arachnids out of the fresher." 

"You afraid of creepy things?" 

"No-I'd rather not tread on them in my bare feet though." 

"I can put up with anything but snakes." 

"Snakes?" I asked, not recognising the Basic word. Luke made a wriggling motion with one hand and hissed. 

"Oh, _sislochi_.They live-lived-in the mountains beyond Nangàl. They aren't that yicky." 

"You wouldn't think that if you'd had them crawling up your trouser legs." 

I couldn't hold in my laughter-evidently Jedi powers were no proof against curious reptiles. 

"It wasn't funny," he protested, but the corners of his mouth were twitching reluctantly as well. I leaned on the access ladder, wiping my eyes. 

"We're going to look good if the Imps attack-creepy-crawlies everywhere and flimsiplast leaves hanging off your S-foils." 

He gave me an innocent blue glance. "They won't attack tonight-and anyway, I don't care, as long as there are no snakes!" 

Back in my bunkroom, Vega was in her underwear, pinning up her hair. She gave a little squeal as I came in. 

"Here you are at last-I ran your dress through the valet unit, and for pity's sake wash your face, it's dirty. Lucky you washed your hair this morning, and get a move on, will you?" 

"I don't know that I want to go," I said, but I stripped off my uniform and began washing at the basin. 

"Course you do, it'll be fun!" Vega said persuasively. I undid the ribbon that was holding my hair up, and it fell down my back in a tangled wavy mass. My white dress had done duty on gala occasions-the few of them there had been-for four years, and was holding up well. 

"Can you do me up the back, Vega?" I asked, sliding my arms into the filmy sleeves. "And don't get lipstick on it!" 

Vega was now wearing a sleeveless crimson dress with a short skirt and matching boots, and had just painted her lips that colour as well. 

"That dress makes you look like the Princess," she remarked. 

"Only without the figure or the looks," I retorted, brushing my hair. 

Vega considered me, head on one side. 

"You're not bad when you're clean," she grinned. "I mean, you have delicate bones and lovely clear skin and those big eyes. You just don't make enough of yourself. Finish your hair and I'll do your face for you, and you'll be gorgeous." 

I left my hair down, twisting through it the silver chain Ari had given me when I turned twenty. In the military I had to be tidier than my hair liked, and I would give it free rein for once. Vega made up my face and turned me to her mirror.I looked at my own face in some surprise. I looked—older? Prettier? Definitely more like a woman than usual, in my Engineering Corps coveralls. 

"We are the Rebels, young, brave and beautiful!" she proclaimed. "Let's knock 'em dead, Keit!" 

"I don't want to impress people by looking pretty," I objected hotly. "Besides, it's so long since I've worn these heels I'll probably _literally_ knock someone out as I fall over." 

Vega laughed and slid her arm companionably into mine. 

"C'mon!" 

Hangar Four's makeshift decorations looked better with half the lights turned out. The band, perched up on their platform of crates, was playing a jizz tune as people flooded in. I saw Tycho, and waved. The band struck into a familiar Alderaanian tune. Vega squeezed my hand. 

"Don't cry-your make-up will run," she whispered bracingly in my ear. I giggled, instead. Tycho arrived. 

"You look great, Ve. Care to dance a _ryla_ with me, _Inia Abhram_?" 

I put my hands in his, and we danced an enthusiastic and technically flawless _ryla_, Tycho bending me back at the dips until my hair touched the floor. He released me, breathless, at the end, to Vega, who elbowed me and murmured, "When I said 'knock 'em dead', I didn't mean _my_ boyfriend." 

"Who else would I dance a _ryla_ with, Vega? Anyhow, next one's yours." 

He bore her off to dance a malkura, and a stranger with green eyes and fair hair claimed me. I spotted Leia at the far end of the hangar, dancing with Luke Skywalker. The next tune was Alderaanian again, a slow folk tune. I got rid of my nice stranger, having no desire to slow dance with him, and headed for the maintenance hangar, whistling the song under my breath. It was a very old one, about a girl whose lover had gone off to the wars, or something like that. Leia was standing alone by the doorway, looking as though she found the song rather too appropriate to her case. 

"Hi," I said. "We used to sing that in singing class with Inia Salkar-oh, she used to despair of us! 'With feeling, children! It's not a shopping list!' and she would clutch her hair, only I can't show you because it would spoil my hairdo." 

I stopped, having run out of breath, and Leia smiled. 

"Poor thing-I'm sure you were a trial to her." 

"Dan was worse," I said, reflecting that at least my singing lessons had deadened me to the impact of maudlin folk songs, if they were of no other use to me. Luke Skywalker appeared from the store, a glass in each hand. 

"Here you go, Leia. Hi, Keitin. You're-you look taller." 

I laughed, and waggled my foot at him to show my high-heeled white ankle boot. Leia shook her head. 

"He means 'You look lovely, Keitin,' but he doesn't have enough manners to put it like that." She gave Luke a smile that took any possible sting from her words, and I suddenly felt excluded. The two of them with their invisible bond-whatever Leia felt for Han Solo could do nothing to change it. I was reminded of an Alderaanian word, _lelketh_, meaning 'brotherhood', more or less, in Basic. 

"Hey, do you want that?" Luke held out his untouched drink to me politely. "I can get another." 

"No, no. I can't steal your drink. I don't even like bliels that much." 

"Sure?" 

"I am perfectly capable of walking into that store and getting a drink for myself, even in these heels," I assured him. 

I ducked under someone's elbow as I entered the store and got myself a huji. Returning to the doorway needed a dance as elaborate as any going on out on the floor. I leaned an elbow on the doorframe, watching and listening. It had always been how I spent parties, at home in Aldera. I remembered another _ryla_ I had danced with Ari, on another Life Day three years before-it seemed very long ago. 

Suddenly I realised-_it didn't hurt_. Thinking about Ari was bittersweet, but the cold ache, the pain that tore me apart, was gone. I held my breath for a few seconds, afraid to think, in case this miracle ceased. I examined my mood, but still no pain. 

I let out the breath I was holding. _I'm getting over it_, I thought. That in itself hurt, that I could forget-no, not that!-that I could stop loving Ari and be happy again. but to go back, to wallow in it-_that's stupid_, I scolded myself. _Whatever would Shamma think?_

"You're looking pre-occupied," Leia said, and I jumped. I hadn't thought she was close to me. "Look after Luke while I go to the fresher, will you?" 

I nodded. Luke was leaning on the wall, not looking in much need of looking after, but I moved to lean beside him anyway. 

"Credit for your thoughts," I said. 

"You'd have to pay more than that to get them out of me," he replied, mouth twisting wryly. I thought that whatever the thoughts were, they didn't seem to be very happy. I pitied him the more because I was feeling cheerful myself. 

"Dance?" he asked, holding out his hands. We stepped out onto the floor, circling silently. 

"Thank you for helping Leia when I was ill," he said suddenly. "It was awfully good of you when you have your own work to do." 

"Oh," I returned, tipping my head so that I could see him properly-what with my high heels, our eyes were almost level. "I love her, you see." 

He smiled, and said ingenuously, "So do I." 

I decided suddenly that I liked him very much indeed. 


	16. Endgame

_Secondmonth 1104_

It wasn't long after Life Day that Luke Skywalker left the Fleet to join the search for Solo. Leia was more withdrawn without him, more driven. One evening she called me up to talk to because 'I want to hear someone call me Leia'. Though sometimes we spoke of our childhood, we never talked about Alderaan's destruction. It hurt too much. 

One morning Vega, coming off the night shift told me that a priority message had just come for the Princess 'from that Force-forsaken hole Skywalker and company are on'. 

"Huh?" I propped myself up on one elbow. 

"I thought you would be interested, being so friendly with her." 

"She and Luke have been having a high-priority argument for the last week," I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. "And can't you come in a bit more quietly? We were working late last night." 

"You may as well get up; you must have had eight hours." 

"Urgh. Well, I didn't join the Rebellion for my beauty sleep, I suppose-" 

I met Leia between the main canteen and the rec room. I knew at once her news had been good. 

"Keitin! Lando's seen him!" 

She grabbed my hands and we did an impromptu war dance in the middle of the corridor. Leia's face was shining, brimming with contagious joy. 

"Breakfast on my tab," Leia said, beaming. "If it's breakfast for you, that is?" 

I nodded, and we squeezed into the canteen, Leia giving sunny greetings to everyone we passed. 

"Well?" I prompted as I sat down, leaning my elbows on the table-top. Leia sobered, pursing her lips. 

"Lando got into Jabba's hide-out. Apparently Han's still in carbonite, and hanging on the wall" 

"On the wall?" 

"Like some kind of-of trophy," Leia confirmed, her voice brittle. I waited silently until she went on, "It's a relief to know he's there, at least. And there's not a lot can happen to him in the carbonite-Jabba could have thawed him out and done something worse." 

"So now?" 

Leia smiled. "Now I'm going to persuade the High Command that a sting operation on Jabba the Hutt is a good idea." 

----- 

_Fourthmonth 1104_

For some reason, the High Command, after keeping Leia dangling for a couple of weeks, turned her down flat. 

"And Dodonna bleating like a sick nerf-calf, 'I think your emotions are clouding your judgement, my dear.' Of course my emotions are clouding my blasted judgement!" Leia ranted to me afterwards. She flung herself into the nearest chair and scribbled on a piece of flimsiplast. 

"Get that coded and send it off to Luke, would you?" 

----- 

Despite soothing messages that clearly bore the mark of a worried Luke, Leia insisted on setting off for Tatooine shortly after that. He, like most other people, couldn't help but capitulate to a determined Leia. 

"Just because I'm female doesn't mean I'm going to sit around while everyone else does the dangerous jobs," she told me as she packed. "Have I _ever_ done that? I mean, it's sweet of him, and he wouldn't be Luke if he wasn't being protective, but I can look after myself! The number of times I've saved _his_ skin-! Anyway, who's in love with Han?" 

"Threepio?" I suggested, sabacc-faced. Leia laughed. 

"It's certainly unrequited, then! Oh, the joys of being short-" She held a pair of uniform trousers against her waist; the cuffs trailed past her boots. 

"Well, at least you have a figure you don't have to look for with a microscope," I said consolingly, waving a hand at myself. 

"Thanks, Keitin-for everything," Leia said as I left. 

"I hope everything goes okay. May the Force be with you," I replied awkwardly. 

_Sixthmonth 1104_

"Something big is on," Vega said. I tugged a comb through the ends of my wet hair. 

"Afoot," I suggested. 

"Yeah, good word-something is afoot. I'm certain of it. We've never been so busy in comm, and all the officers are permanently in meetings. The whole place feels different, like we're gearing up for something." 

"Some big assault, perhaps," I suggested, brushing the curl out of my hair. 

"Yes. I hardly see Tycho these days, he's so busy training on this new fighter." 

"Should you be telling me that?" I asked absently. 

"Oh, fudge, you're not going to tell anyone, are you? You're such a close-mouthed little thing-I don't mean that in a bad way," she added reassuringly. I shrugged. I had always known I listened more than I talked. Both Vega and Leia, in their different ways, were talkers-I supposed that was part of the reason I was friends with them. 

"Have you seen that Imperial defector, Madine?" Vega asked. 

"Have you seen his haircut?" I responded, laughing. 

"You know, there's a limit to what natural good looks can do to alleviate a really bad haircut," Vega grinned. "I'm sure he's nice enough, but I can't pass him in the corridor without wanting to snigger." 

"Wedge says Han said he wasn't trustworthy," I said vaguely. 

"Since when was the third-hand word of Captain Solo good enough, and since when was he 'Han'?" 

I twirled my hairbrush. "Oh, I have a thing for unattainable men-I thought I might as well go for the ultimate: not only frozen and captured by a galactic crime lord, but in love with the princess to boot." 

"Why not Rieekan, or-I know! Madine!" 

I threw the hairbrush at her, but she fielded it deftly. 

"Eww! Vega!" 

----- 

Vega had been right about what was happening. The ships moved to a rendezvous near Sullust, to join with the rest of the Alliance's starships. Mon Calamari and Sullustians became as common in our ranks as humanoids. Rumours flew about the fleet, from suggestions of strafing Coruscant to engaging the Imperial Fleet directly. 

"A new Death Star, even bigger than the first." I refused to believe it when I heard it. I ran to the nearest head and locked myself in until I had stopped shaking. 

"It can't make any difference to me," I told myself firmly. "A thousand Death Stars couldn't make home any more gone than it already is. And as for dying, I've been in danger of that for five years." 

I had been sending messages to Ari, frequently at first, thought they had dropped off since Hoth's evacuation. I handed the canister to someone who was on a likely-looking mission that would bring them into contact with someone from Supply, and hopefully it would be passed on. Everyone did this sort of thing, trying to keep in contact with their families. It was very hit-and-miss; I'd had only one message form Ari since we had parted, though whether that was the success rate of the informal mail, or just bad letter-writing on Ari's part, was debatable. The second message arrived with some of the troops gathering at Sullust. 

_Keit: I hope this reaches you, and you are all right. I haven't heard from you in an age, and there have been rumours. Take care of yourself, Keitin. The kid and I are just the same as ever. The old girl continues to do well. She had her repulsorlifts reconditioned and is very nippy at getting out of docks. No more excitements though. The family business had the auditors in, we heard, but they found nothing incriminating. Ari._

I stood in the messhall where I had read this message, the ever-present babble of voices washing over me unheard. I could see Ari in my mind's eye sitting in _Swift_'s cockpit, biting his stylus thoughtfully. Ari was good at writing when it wasn't personal; cargo lists or theoretical astrography were fine, but not letters. 

My hand was clenched around the scrap of flimsi. Ari's hand had travelled over it not so long ago, transfering thoughts from mind to page; thoughts divided about equally between my safety and _Swift_, by the look of it. I smiled rather sadly, and tucked the message into my shirt pocket. 

I heard at breakfast one day, from Tycho, that the _Millennium Falcon_ was back again. Fortuitously, I met Leia later on, in the bunkroom corridor on my way to bed. 

"Leia, tell me, did you-?" 

She smiled, looking happier than I remembered ever seeing her. 

"I could sing-come here, I'll tell you all about it." 

The princess' room had the relative luxury of a sofa, and we made use of it as I heard what Leia called her 'Tatooine tale'. She was bright-eyed, triumphant and very much inclined to talk. After the saga of heat, sand, and being chained half-naked to a Hutt was over, I asked, 

"And now? Is it true about another Death Star?" 

Leia nodded, suddenly sombre. 

"Alliance gossip is wonderfully informative. It's not operational yet, that's why we're hitting it now. And it gets even better." 

She smiled, not a pleasant smile. "In fact, it seems almost too good to be true. I feel there must be a catch somewhere-but, Keitin, you see why we have to destroy it, don't you?" 

She caught my hand, her dark eyes looking at me pleadingly. I nodded. 

"I knew you would. We can't let _that_ happen to anyone else the way it happened to us." 

She glanced down, tears shining in her eyes. I had never seen her cry, I realised, and suddenly found the wall beside me very interesting. I didn't know where to look, but in a moment Leia was so calm I wondered if I had imagined that glint of tears. 

"So is Luke Skywalker going to do his stuff again?" I asked lightly. 

"_If_ he gets here in time from wherever keeps disappearing to," Leia said. "He's been getting awfully secretive lately." 

"Isn't it Han you're supposed to be worried about lying to you?" 

"Oh, Luke never _lies_, except blatantly obvious ones you're not even meant to believe, like 'I'm fine' even if he's bleeding everywhere or something. No, it's just-" 

She broke off, shrugging. 

"I suppose we had better get some sleep. I think it's starting." 

------ 

"You would think they would learn, wouldn't you?" Vega paced up and down our bunkroom, clattering the locker doors, her fists balling nervously. 

"Probably they did, and removed whatever design flaw it was that let us blow up the last one," I replied. I was feeling twitchy myself, but by an effort of will I was sitting motionless on my bunk, hands clasped between my knees. The briefing for the attack on the Empire's new Death Star had taken place that morning. I had not been there, being on duty, but I had already heard most of the information, from Leia or from the rumours. The only thing new to me was the presence of Emperor Palpatine on the Death Star. Vega, however, had been listening in on the relay system. 

"Us! Skywalker, you mean," she exclaimed. "Hey, listen, he walked into the briefing right in the middle, and volunteered for Solo's mission, cool as you please. Just goes to show, become an Alliance hero and you can go awol any time you please. If any of us mere mortals tried that we'd be fried." 

"Cut up, stewed and eaten for dinner," I agreed. Vega suddenly sat down beside me, seeming to crumple. 

"Dammit, Keitin, I'm scared!" 

"Me too." 

------ 

I was pulled back into communications for the battle. A junior research and design engineer isn't much use in a full-scale military attack. 

As the assault began, I sat in front of my console, avoiding my colleagues' eyes. I was feeling sick at the thought of participating in an all-out battle. I thought of Leia and her friends, wherever they were. _I hope they got that deflector shield down_, I thought, wiping my hands down the sides of my trousers. 

"Five minutes to realspace," Commander Farr said, her voice expressionless. I slewed round in my seat to exchange glances with Vega, who looked grimly determined. I settled my headset more firmly on my ears, felt the subtle change in vibration as the sublight engines cut in. 

This was it. 

The battle had barely begun when we heard the frantic order, "Pull up! The shield's still up! Pull up!" 

My hands were shaking as I made the connections. What had happened to Leia and Luke and Han? Why was the shield not down? _There went our surprise attack_. In the depths of the ship as we were, all we knew of the battle was through our headsets. Even laser blasts on the shields were barely discernable from the general motion of the ship. Only fighters were attacking us; for some reason the capital ships were hanging back. I was hearing pilots dying over the comm, wondering at every scream was it someone I knew. I kept working automatically, doing things I had done a hundred times before. 

I heard the _Liberty_ die. One moment I could hear the pilot talking to Home One, then breaking off, "What the-?" Then came the roar of explosive decompression, and a faint crackle. 

"That blast came from the Death Star!" several voices exclaimed. 

_So that was what happened to Alderaan_, I thought numbly. The Death Star was probably picking off more Alliance ships, but I was beyond emotional reaction for the moment. Familiar faces flashed in front of my eyes. Shamma, Dan, Ged. What would it matter if I joined them in death? The orders I was passing on were a meaningless blur. I wondered briefly how anyone managed to think coherently in the middle of a battle, let alone think of strategy. Seconds felt like hours. Every second I expected to be the last, but no blast came. 

"The shield's down!" The words penetrated my mind at last, repeated as they were by a dozen voices. Suddenly living mattered again. I thought of the fighters racing to the Death Star, of Leia down on the Forest Moon. I couldn't breath. Everything hung in the balance, on these few moments. 

"Move the Fleet away from the Death Star. Move the Fleet away from the Death Star!" 

The frigate shuddered as the engines boosted to full power. The tension in the room was palpable. I chewed at my thumbnail. Then my headset crackled so loudly that it hurt my ears. I guessed what it must be-the electromagnetic pulse from the Death Star exploding, but I did not dare to believe it until someone cried, "It's blown! It's gone!" 

The comm centre was filled with cheering, the officers hugging each other with headsets still in place. It was the first fruits of a celebration that would spread out across the galaxy, to every corner where the Empire had planted its boot. 

----- 

There was, of course, a lot of clearing up to do. 

The celebration was exuberant, full of joyful reunions-Toryn and Samoc Farr, Tycho and Vega, Leia and Han somewhere I suppose. Clearing up after the party, I knew, would be just the beginning. There would be plenty to do, battles to fight, both for me and for the Alliance. But I felt lost, purposeless. I made my way to one of the viewing galleries of the frigate. It was a long time since I had had time to look at the stars. I wondered, standing by the viewport, whether I could see Alderaan's sun and which one it was. _Ari_, I thought, the old longing welling up in my from force of habit. Because I was alone in the gallery, I cried a little. But Ari and my family had belonged to a different time, divided from me by this victory. I was a different person from the girl who had left Alderaan so long ago. I heard a light footfall behind me, and turned my head. 

"Hello, Luke," I said, wondering if he could see that I had been crying, and decided that it didn't matter. 

"Hi," he returned, moving to lean on the rail beside me. 

"Where's Leia, do you know?" 

"I don't. I have a feeling I don't _want_ to know." 

This struck me as very funny, and I started laughing, a little uncertainly. The corners of Luke' mouth crinkled. 

"You all right?" he asked when I had quietened. 

"Anticlimactic is the word, I think." 

"I know what you mean." 

I looked at the starscape again, realising abruptly-"That isn't the Empire any more." 

"No...I wonder, when the Republic began, did they think it would last so long-did they know what they were going to be responsible for?" 

I thought about it. "Probably they were just people, who were worried about the baby teething and how their haircuts looked. As for where they lived-the Coruscanti would say Coruscant, the Corellians would say Corellia, and I of course say Alderaan." 

Luke laughed. "I'm sure it wasn't Tatooine." 

"The new Republic started there, in a way," I thought aloud. 

"Huh?" 

I glanced pointedly at him. "I've heard the rumours." 

"Oh, me-I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Leia says." He grinned self-consciously, and added, "And weren't we all?" 

I leaned my elbows on the edge of the viewport's frame, chin on my fists. If I hadn't been in the wrong place the day Alderaan died, I remembered, I would have died too. For the first time I saw my life as a gift from fate, the Force, the patron god of hyperdrives. What was I going to do with it? _Living takes more courage than dying_, Shamma used to say. Well, did I not have courage? I was an Avram, the last of a proud line. I set my chin, said, "See you later," to Luke, and started optimistically out of the gallery to face the new world. 

I turned my head for one last look at the stars-I could almost see the beloved faces outlined against them. And they smiled. 

_Finis_


	17. Appendix: Dramatis Personae

_On Alderaan_ (all human) 

Viceroy Bail Organa   
Princess Leia Organa   
Keitin Miridh Avram   
_Inia_ Miridh Avram: her grandmother.   
Her sons: Tad, Shan and Arod Avram.   
Shosha Avram: Wife of Tad.   
Lusar, Finn, Dan, Iruben and Yemi Avram: their sons.   
Hele and Chama Avram: Lusar's wife and daughter.   
Talith Avram: Shan's wife.   
Ged and Arkos Avram: their sons.   
Kerith, Zosi and Fran Avram: Other family members.   
Ari Oharran, Devin Tryla, Hanne, Bailey, Kolm: Pupils at the Viceregal Institute of Education. 

_Employees of Avram Trade and Transport_

Bail Ghesli, human male from Alderaan: a manager in the Coruscant office.   
Kal Jonisik, Twil'lek male.   
Misha, human male from Alderaan: Pilot.   
Antilles: employee in the Thuran depot. 

_Members of the Rebel Alliance: In Supply and Procurement_

'Grandfather': the leader.   
Zek, Solik and Bailin: Alderaani males and female respectively.   
Rix Ha'Alori, human male from Thura.   
Vann Zeiss, human male.   
Suki Zerah, human female.   
'Nek' and 'Peko': Two members of the Mamrosp strike team. 

_Members of the Rebel Alliance: On Hoth_

General Carlist Rieekan, human male   
Commander Luke Skywalker, human male from Tatooine.   
Zev Senesca, human male (Rogue 2)   
Wedge Antilles, human male from Corellia. (Rogue 3)   
Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian, human male   
Tycho Celchu, human male from Alderaan.   
Wes Janson, human male from Tanaab.   
Samoc Farr, human female.   
Dack Ralter, human male. 

Toryn Farr, human female   
Vega Ha'Kritt, human female from Thura.   
Bracco, human male. 

Han Solo, human male from Corellia.   
Chewbacca, Wookiee male from Kashyyyk. 

_Members of the Rebel Alliance: The High Command_

Mon Mothma, human female: Leader of the Rebel Alliance   
General Jan Dodonna, human male from Alderaan.


	18. Appendix: Note on Alderaanian

The narrator, Keitin Avram, and a number of other characters in _Rebel Heart_ are bilingual in Basic and Old Alderaanian. This language (on its own terms _Karmeth_, meaning 'speech') survived on Alderaan at the period of the Empire both as a literary and ceremonial tongue, and (in a more colloquial form) as the vernacular of the country people and elderly. Until comparatively recently this was the usual language on Alderaan—it was Bail Organa's cradle-speech, as his nanny (Miridh Arodessa, later Avram) was country-bred, and did not learn Basic till her teens. Leia Organa's generation (most of the characters of this story) spoke Basic in general, but were usually taught Alderaanain also. The Avram children, for example, spoke Basic to each other and Karmeth to their grandmother. Tycho Celchu, being city-reared for generations, was a little rusty. After Alderaan's destruction, there was a resurgence of interest in their ancestral language among the exiles. 

Pronunciation: _ch_ and _gh_ are gutteral sounds, as in Gaelic. _bh_ is _v_. _dh_ is a voiced _th_, as in _that_. Karmeth was written in a slightly modified form of the Aurebesh letters and tended to change slightly in transliteration to Basic, losing the accent used to mark short vowels. (_à è ì ò _). Keitin would have spelt her name in her own alphabet _Keitìn Abhram_, and the very name _Alderaan_ was originally _Àlderan_, though this transliteration was so old it was usually used even when writing in Alderaanian letters. In this story, the Basic versions are used in almost all cases.


	19. Appendix: Glossary of Alderaanian Words

**Glossary of Alderaanian words**

_ad_: from 

_chrydh_: heart 

_frigh_: A bushy ground-hugging plant, brownish-green in colour. 

_lelketh_: brotherhood, used of both blood and friendship relationships. 

_m'lei_: my daughter. 

_m'lelkon_: A term of address to a brother or close male friend. 

_m'lelka_: A term of address to a sister or close female friend. 

_m'lon_: my son. 

_Shamma_: An affectionate term for 'grandmother'. 

_shugh_: a drainage ditch. 

_sisloch_, pl. _sislochi_: snake. 

_unadh_: nothing. 

_utathar_: an illegitimate child. _lon/lei na'ahur_ is a more insulting term for the same thing (lit. son/daughter of a prostitute)


	20. Appendix: Timeline

**2/1081:** Ari Oharran born. 

**6/1081:** Leia and Luke Skywalker born. 

**12/1082:** Keitin Avram born. 

**8/1095:** Keitin Avram starts school. 

**1/1098:** Princess Leia Organa elected Senator of Alderaan 

**6/1099:** Keitin leaves school, and begins working for the Alliance. 

**5/1100:** Chama Avram born. 

**7/1100:** ANH takes place. Destruction of Alderaan. 

**9/1102:** The Ulasas mission. 

**12/1102:** Keitin's mission to Mamrosp. 

**5/1103:** The Thuro mission. 

**6/1103:** Keitin posted to Hoth. 

**10/1103:** Evacuation of Echo Base. 

**12/1103:** _Millennium Falcon_ returns to the fleet. 

**6/1104:** Rescue of Han Solo; Battle of Endor.


End file.
